Terrorism financing concern behind search
By Antigone Barton, Eliot Kleinberg and John Lantigua, Palm Beach Post Staff Writers
Thursday, January 23, 2003
GREENACRES -- The FBI Wednesday concluded an intense search of a home that was hurriedly abandoned by a Saudi family just two days before the Sept. 11 attacks. Federal sources said they are investigating whether the homeowner was involved in financing the terrorists.
Sources said investigators are trying to establish whether Mohamad Almasri, 57, who owned the white, one-story home in a gated community, might have financial ties to Muslim charities suspected of funneling money to the Al-Qaeda hijackers.
"We're looking to see if there is any connection, financial or otherwise, to any terrorist organization, including the 9/11 hijackers, but it is all very preliminary," a federal investigator familiar with the probe told The Miami Herald.
On Wednesday agents hauled away a car that apparently had been stored in the garage at 1606 Doral Drive in the Fairway Isles community since the home was abandoned 16 months ago. They also carted off cardboard cartons and paper bags full of unknown materials.
The vehicle, a 2001 silver Mitsubishi Mirage, was registered to Almasri's son, Turki Almasri, 22.
A flight instructor at the nearby Lantana airport said Wednesday the younger Almasri took classes from his company for six months in 2001. That, combined with the sudden departure by other family members, might have attracted the FBI's attention.
Many of the 19 men who participated in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were Saudis and several of them took flying lessons in Florida, leaving the state just before the hijackings. Mohamad Atta, the alleged ringleader of the Al-Qaeda hijackers, rented planes for practice flights out of the Lantana airport during his stay in South Florida.
But David Allison, chief flight instructor at Kemper Aviation, said Almasri was still at the school when armed hijacked airliners flew into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.
"On 9/11 he was right here taking a lesson," Allison said. "He stopped coming about a week later."
Allison said Almasri told people at the school that he had been a flight attendant for Saudi Airlines and that he wanted to be a commercial pilot. He took lessons about two or three times a week and needed about another year of training to complete the course, the instructor said.
"He was a pleasant, respectful young man," Allison said, adding that Almasri was an "unremarkable" student and that there was nothing unusual or suspicious about his request for training.
Turki Almasri, according to neighbors, apparently stayed in the house for at least several days after most other family members departed. But he, too, apparently eventually left in a hurry -- leaving behind the car agents removed Wednesday.
One of its tires was flat and the trunk and doors were sealed with investigators' tape. The license plate had expired in March 2002 and was not renewed, state records show.
On the other hand, county records show that 2001 property taxes were paid on the house Dec. 5 of that year, almost three months after the family left. Property taxes for 2002 have not been paid. In October 2002, the town of Greenacres put a lien on the house for a $67.75 municipal trash pickup fee.
Mohamad Almasri bought the three-bedroom, two-bath house in June 2000, apparently for cash. Almasri told neighbors he was an engineer.
Other family members who lived there, according to state records and neighbors, were the older Almasri's wife, Alaf I. Arif, 47; a daughter, Madawi Almasri, 26; and two younger children, a boy and a girl.
A search of national records revealed no previous addresses in the United States for any of the Almasri family, and no subsequent addresses.
Dozens of agents, some of them in FBI windbreakers, worked at the scene for a second day Wednesday. On Tuesday, some of the agents wore biohazard jumpsuits, but those precautions were absent on Wednesday.
FBI spokeswoman Judy Orihuela said she did not expect the searchers to return. She said the agents were not looking for anthrax or any other toxic substance. According to local residents, agents had been to the house about two weeks ago and removed a computer and disks. Agents also visited the house several months ago.
Orihuela emphasized that the searchers were not members of the FBI's terrorism task force, but were agents from South Florida offices.
An official at the Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington who is a liaison with the FBI has not been contacted by the agency, said embassy spokesman Nail al-Jubeir.
Several neighbors said they called the FBI soon after the Sept. 11 attacks to report the sudden and suspicious departure of the family.
Kristina Daddio, whose mother Martha Ruth lives next door to the Almasris' former home, remembered vividly that the family left on Sept. 9, 2001, with the adults throwing suitcases into a white minivan she had never seen and hurriedly ushering the children into the vehicle.
Daddio, echoing others in the neighborhood, said the Almasris were always courteous and always stopped in to say goodbye when they were about to leave on one of their frequent trips to Saudi Arabia.
But that day was different. Mohamad Almasri called a hurried goodbye and they drove away.
"They were just booting out of there," Daddio said.
Martha Ruth had been in the house next door just once, to clear up a misunderstanding about a gate between their properties, Daddio said. Turki Almasri had come home to find the gate between the two yards open, allowing entrance to his family's side and back yards. It was usually closed.
"He was frantic," Daddio said, "Saying, 'What happened? Who has been here?' "
He was so upset that Ruth later visited him, to find the family watching an Arabic news program.
"He had calmed down completely," Daddio said, "He told her not to worry, that everything was fine."
Staff writer Scott McCabe contributed to this story.
antigone_barton@pbpost.com, eliot_kleinberg@pbpost, john_lantigua@pbpost.com.com
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