Posted on 07/07/2002 1:19:17 AM PDT by kattracks
Authorities are investigating whether Hesham Mohammed Hadayet, the Egyptian who gunned down two people at Los Angeles International Airport last Thursday, met in the United States with Osama bin Laden's deputy, an Arabic paper reported at the weekend.
The London-based Al-Hayat said that authorities were checking whether Hadayet had met with Ayman Al-Zawahiri in 1995 and again in 1998, while the latter was head of the Al-Jihad organization in Egypt.
Al-Zawahiri, who visited California in 1998, went on to become bin Laden's right-hand man. His current whereabouts are unknown.
Hadayet, 41, was shot dead by an El Al security official soon after opening fire on the crowd of people queuing at the ticket counter of Israel's national carrier.
The U.S. government had started deportation proceedings in 1996 against Hadayet but he gained U.S. residency the following year when his wife received a valid visa, officials said Saturday.
It wasn't clear what caused the Immigration and Naturalization Service to reject Hadayet's first petition for residency and begin the deportation process, INS spokesman Francisco Arcaute said.
A year later, in 1997, Hadayet was granted permanent resident status because his wife, Hala, had become a permanent resident, Arcaute said. The INS allows foreign nationals to work and live in the United States if they have a relative who is a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.
Hadayet's uncle, Hassan Mostaffa Mahfouz, told The Associated Press in Egypt that Hadayet was happy in the United States and had only about a year remaining before he qualified for U.S. citizenship.
"I don't believe what happened," Mahfouz said.
The two people killed in the attack at El Al's ticket counter at Los Angeles International Airport were identified as Ya'akov Aminov, 47, and El Al stewardess Vicky Chen, both of them residents of Los Angeles, Israel Radio reported Friday morning. (Click here for more on the victims.)
Egypt FM surprised at furor over El Al shooting
Egypt's foreign minister expressed surprise Saturday at the furor over a deadly attack by an Egyptian national at Los Angeles airport, saying the motives were still unclear and similar incidents occurred frequently.
Egypt's official Middle East News Agency (MENA) said Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher told reporters in Cairo that such incidents occur repeatedly in the United States and other countries and said he was surprised by the exaggeration of this event in particular.
"Until now, nobody knows the motives behind this incident. We have to await the outcome of the current investigations so that we can review them," MENA quoted Maher as saying.
Egypt's semi-official al-Ahram daily said Saturday that local security authorities had no information on record about Hadayet and there was no evidence he had any links to extremist activities when he lived in Egypt.
Ex-employee tells NY Times: Hadayet 'had hate for Israel'
In an interview to The New York Times published Saturday, a former employee of Hadayet that he "often heard his boss express virulent anti-Israeli sentiments."
Hadayet "had hate for Israel, for sure," Syrian-born Abdul Zahab told The New York Times. "He told me that the Israelis tried to destroy the Egyptian nation and the Egyptian population by sending prostitutes with AIDS to Egypt. He said that the two biggest drug dealers in New York are Israeli."
The FBI said Friday it had no indication suggesting that the attack was an act of terrorism, but said the gunman's motive was still unclear. (Click here for a look inside El Al security.)
"He was not on any FBI or FAA watch list," FBI agent Richard Garcia told a news conference. He added that authorities still had several days work to do "to determine whether this person acted in an act of terrorism."
"We have not determined whether he had any anti-Israeli views," Garcia said, adding that it was still "very difficult to determine the exact motive" for the shooting.
The FBI said earlier that Hadayet apparently was not connected to any terror organizations, and probably acted on his own.
I thought he was saying "Allah is a grape". thx for straightening me out.
Did Hadayet attend this mosque?
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