9/11 panel never spoke to detainee who knew 2 hijackers

Posted on Fri, Jul. 23, 2004
9/11 panel never spoke to detainee who knew 2 hijackers
By Shannon McCaffrey
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - A Yemeni man who befriended two of the Sept. 11 hijackers may have known of their plans in advance, according to the commission investigating the attacks.

Commission executive staff director, Philip Zelikow said Friday the panel was "troubled" by what it learned about Mohdar Abdullah, who allegedly bragged to another inmate at an immigration detention facility in San Diego that he knew beforehand of the al-Qaida plot to hijack planes and slam them into buildings.

The FBI investigated Abdullah for nearly two years but the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of California declined to prosecute. He was deported in May to his native Yemen even though a jailhouse informant told investigators earlier this spring that Abdullah confessed to him that he had prior knowledge of the hijacking plan. Abdullah was never interviewed by investigators from the Sept. 11 commission who had been trying to speak with him.

"We were puzzled that he was deported," Zelikow said.

The FBI has long held that no one in the United States knowingly collaborated with the Sept. 11 hijackers or knew in advance what they were planning to do.

Randy Hamud, Abdullah's San Diego lawyer, said his client "categorically denies" ever knowing of the hijackers' plans beforehand or telling anyone that he did.

"If there were a scintilla of credibility to that claim they would have prosecuted him," Hamud said in a telephone interview Friday.

Abdullah became friendly with hijackers Nawaf al Hazmi and Khalid al Mihdhar after meeting them at the Rabat mosque in suburban San Diego. The pair, who arrived in San Diego in 2000, spoke very little English and Abdullah helped them do things such as apply for drivers' licenses, exchange airline tickets, make inquiries about flight schools and enroll in English language classes, said FBI agent Jacqueline Maguire, who is working on the Sept. 11 probe.

The other hijackers were instructed to avoid mosques and blend in as best they could while in the United States. But because al Hazmi and al Mihdhar spoke almost no English and were not familiar with Western culture they were permitted to seek out help from the local Muslim community, Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has told his interrogators.

The FBI learned of Abdullah soon after the Sept. 11 attacks. Documents found in the Toyota Corolla al Hazmi left parked at Dulles Airport led them to their old apartment in San Diego. An ex-roommate there directed them to Abdullah.

Abdullah was jailed on charges of lying on immigration forms and was interviewed a number of times by FBI agents about his relationship with al Hazmi and al Mihdhar, Maguire said. He denied knowing about the deadly attack they were preparing.

"He knew the hijackers," Maguire said. "It appears that he did assist them, albeit to this day we do not have evidence that that support ... was witting."

FBI agents were interested in Abdullah's cell phone records that showed that although his phone service had not been disconnected he stopped getting calls after August 2001.

"In light of the September 11 attacks, looking at that afterward, yes, that did look suspicious," Maguire said.

Then this spring, with Abdullah facing deportation, a fellow detainee wrote a letter to the Department of Homeland Security saying that Abdullah told him that he had learned of the attacks before they occurred from the two hijackers.

In conversations in correctional facility's recreation yard and through the air ducts between cells, Abdullah allegedly boasted to the other inmate that al Hazmi and al Mihdhar told him they were planning to hijack planes and crash them into buildings. Abdullah did not know specifics of the attack.

But two other inmates who the FBI interviewed to corroborate the claim of the jailhouse snitch gave conflicting stories, Maguire said.

Charges were never filed and the Justice Department declined to delay his removal proceedings while the new information was investigated further, the commission report said.

Commission investigators sought to interview Abdullah in November 2003 even before learning of his alleged jailhouse confession but he declined. His lawyer at the time said he would cooperate only if he was released from custody, according to the commission report. The Justice Department declined to seek an order to compel his testimony.

Hamud said that since returning to Yemen, Abdullah has been under almost constant surveillance and was surprised to learn that his name had surfaced in the commission report.

"They are ruining his life with distortions and inaccuracies," Hamud said.