Posted on 02/16/2002 3:57:37 PM PST by testforecho
FBI checking 5 in illegal-license cases for possible al-Qaida links
By LENNY SAVINO
Knight Ridder Newspapers
MEMPHIS, Tenn. - The FBI is investigating whether four New York men and one from Tennessee who are in custody here for illegally purchasing Tennessee driver's licenses may be members of an al-Qaida terrorist cell that helped survey New York's World Trade Center for the Sept. 11 hijackers.
When one of the men, Sakhera "Rocky" Hammad, was arrested, FBI agents found a security pass from the Trade Center dated Sept. 5. Agents also have learned that Hammad drove from New York to Memphis on Sept. 11.
So far, none of the five men, all of Middle Eastern origin, has been linked to any terrorist organization or to the Sept. 11 attacks, the FBI said.
But interest in the case spiked this week after Katherine Smith, the Tennessee state worker who allegedly sold the men driver's licenses, was found burned to death in her car one day before she was due to appear in court. Forensic specialists found gasoline inside Smith's car and on her clothing. She died from inhaling flames, one FBI agent testified.
None of the five men has been connected to her death.
"We are looking at every possible scenario," Phil Thomas, the head of the FBI's Memphis field office, said Friday. "And that includes whether it was an accident, a murder or a suicide."
The trail leading from Memphis to Hammad began Jan. 31 when an FBI informant in New York told FBI agents that "several persons from the Mid-East who were here illegally" were driving to Memphis on Feb. 5 in a gray 2001 Dodge Durango, court papers say. Their purpose: to obtain driver's licenses for about $1,000 each, according to the arrest affidavit.
The Durango, followed by a Toyota Avalon driven by Khaled Odtllah, 31, the alleged middleman in the deal and a friend of Smith's, arrived at a motor vehicle office on Summer Avenue in Memphis at 8:15 a.m., the affidavit says.
Hammad got out of the Durango with Mohammad Ali Fares, 19; Mostafa Said Abou-Shahin, 26, and Abdelmuhsen Mahid Hammad, age unknown. The four went inside, where Smith allegedly issued driver's licenses to the men, who used altered spellings of their names, FBI agents said.
All five were arrested after they pulled away from the motor vehicle office.
Smith, 49, was questioned the same day the men were arrested, and told FBI agents that she had provided licenses for Odtllah on about "six or seven occasions," Thomas said.
Thomas said Smith was so "visibly shaken" before her questioning that she accidentally ran into the back of the FBI car she was following to the bureau's Memphis office.
She surrendered a day later on federal charges of conspiracy to issue the fraudulent licenses. A Tennessee state employee for 29 years, her yearly salary was $23,052.
"She was just an average citizen raising her family and going to work every day," the FBI's Thomas said. "Unfortunately, she made the wrong decision."
After his arrest, Sakhera Hammad, 24, told FBI agents that he had a World Trade Center pass because he had worked as a plumber at the twin towers. He said he worked on the sprinkler system, and that Mahid Hammad also worked at the Trade Center.
Sakhera Hammad has dual citizenship in the United States and Jordan, which controlled the eastern part of Jerusalem and the West Bank until Israel captured them in 1967.
Mahid Hammad has overstayed a visa to enter the country, and Shahin, from Eqypt, is in the United States illegally, according to the criminal complaint.
Alleged middleman Odtllah, 31, came to the United States from Jerusalem about 13 years ago and settled in Memphis, where he owned a gas station and sells used cars. Smith later said she was a customer when Odtllah learned that she worked for the Department of Motor Vehicles and asked if she could arrange to get driver's licenses for his "cousins," agents said.
Fares was born in Venezuela, has a Venezuelan passport and has lived in Lebanon. After walking across the border from Mexico into California, he went to New York, where he said he needed the driver's license to get a job, court papers say.
The five men are all being held without bond.
Jake Erwin, the attorney for Mahid Hammad, said Friday that had it not been for the "collateral issues" of Smith's death and the links to the World Trade Center, Hammad would have been released on bond.
"My client was in custody when the lady was either killed or whatever happened," Erwin said.
Smith spent the hours before her death eating ice cream with one of her daughters in their midtown home across from the Liberty Bowl.
After her daughter fell asleep about 9 p.m. last Saturday, Smith drove her 1992 Acura to a rural road about 25 miles outside Memphis, FBI agent Thomas said.
An off-duty Mississippi police officer driving in the opposite direction saw her back seat on fire at 12:45 a.m. Sunday. By the time he doubled back, she had veered off the road and tapped a utility pole before her car burst into a fireball. Although she died in the blaze, her gas tank never ignited.
When one of the men, Sakhera "Rocky" Hammad, was arrested, FBI agents found a security pass from the Trade Center dated Sept. 5. Agents also have learned that Hammad drove from New York to Memphis on Sept. 11.
So far, none of the five men, all of Middle Eastern origin, has been linked to any terrorist organization or to the Sept. 11 attacks, the FBI said.
But interest in the case spiked this week after Katherine Smith, the Tennessee state worker who allegedly sold the men driver's licenses, was found burned to death in her car one day before she was due to appear in court. Forensic specialists found gasoline inside Smith's car and on her clothing. She died from inhaling flames, one FBI agent testified.
None of the five men has been connected to her death.
"We are looking at every possible scenario," Phil Thomas, the head of the FBI's Memphis field office, said Friday. "And that includes whether it was an accident, a murder or a suicide."
The trail leading from Memphis to Hammad began Jan. 31 when an FBI informant in New York told FBI agents that "several persons from the Mid-East who were here illegally" were driving to Memphis on Feb. 5 in a gray 2001 Dodge Durango, court papers say. Their purpose: to obtain driver's licenses for about $1,000 each, according to the arrest affidavit.
to me, it's saying rocky has a pass showing he had "a pass from the WTC dated on 9/5."
it goes on to say "agents learned that Hammad drove from NY to memphis on 9/11."
further down the piece it's saying that several persons are driving to the license bureau on 9/5 and are subsequently arrested.
if that's the case, wouldn't they all ready be in the klink on 9/11?
was rocky with the others on the 9/5 trip from NYC to memphis? was he arrested later?
is it possible that this piece was a "revised" edition of the original article?
After her daughter fell asleep about 9 p.m. last Saturday, Smith drove her 1992 Acura to a rural road about 25 miles outside Memphis, FBI agent Thomas said.
This is new information to me. The key is who she was going to meet on Saturday night that led to her demise.
thinden, the license fiasco went down on Feb 5, not Sep 5; unless I'm misreading something.
I am having trouble with that statement, Hwy 72 is not a rural road and it is just about 25 miles from where she lived to the Mississippi line.
So what rural road are they talking about and how do they know where she went.
Cayce Road goes south right at the Tennessee-Mississippi border and it is rural. The town of Cayce has a population of maybe two hundred and Victoria further south about the same.
thanx fred. feel like you just released me from the twilight zone.
Sure does make you wonder, doesn't it? I read one report that sprinklers had gone off, but no word on if all of them did. They might have been there for for than 'plumbing,' though. They might have installed other things, with their access to maintainance spaces. The suspect is the one who said he was a plumber; he might have been something else in maintenance. Elevators, electrical, etc.
After his arrest, Sakhera Hammad, 24, told FBI agents that he had a World Trade Center pass because he had worked as a plumber at the twin towers. He said he worked on the sprinkler system, and that Mahid Hammad also worked at the Trade Center.
Yup. Very curious. Why would the terrorists need 'scouts' just to blow up buildings with planes?
Why would the WTC hire these guys in particular, just for a one-time job? What was wrong that they were called in to 'fix?' Didn't the WTC have its own full-time staff of maintainance people?
Where did these men with the fake IDs live- in New York or Jersey? How did they come to know someone in Memphis, of all places?
They left NY on the days of the attacks. What were they doing from 9/5 to 9/11? Makes you wonder who the person was on the intercom that day that told everyone to go back to their offices, too.
So the terrorists were working on a "towering inferno" scenario only. In that case, to maximize the effects of the infernos, they would want someone to sabotage the automatic sprinkler systems. They would not need or want to carry in more demo to wreck the building: just turn some valves, or even change some signs to indicate "valve open" when it's closed etc. Or chain or lock shut some valves in dusty rarely visited maintenance rooms. A couple of "kryptonite locks" for example could delay the firefighters for a long time.
(See my reply to piasa for motive.)
Plus, the aircraft probably broke the pipes coming in anyway, which would do a number on water pressure, and the massive fire would overwhelm whatever water the broken system could put out.
Some old buildings used to pump water up into a storage tank located at the top of the building, and then the water would flow down, giving you all the pressure you need if the tank was kept topped off. In that case a break in the lines would send a lot of water gushing down at the break. Once the tank was drained though, you were in trouble if you couldn't pump more water up. Or, if someone rigged it so that you though the tank was full when it was not, there would be no emergency water reservoir. I don't know if the WTC had such a system; I guess not since technology has improved things since then.
I wasn't thinking of something tinfoil- I wasn't at all surprised to see the buildings come down- I thought the buildings would collapse from the stress, shifting towards the weakened areas like a coke can collapsing under your foot when tapped. Once it was obvious how hot it was and how long it was going to keep burning, it was a given the steel would fail. I'm just wondering if there could have been some other reason to have people on-site than just fiddling with water sprinklers- unless the terrorists were just doing it as an insurance policy, or to have souvenier photos made for their sick little videos so they could gloat.
Just "lose these guys in the system" long enough to let the Philippinos talk to them for a few days and we will get all the answers.
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