Just one more article you may want to read from the same issue of this publication.
The more I learn and hear about the OKC's obvious questions and blatant discrepencies that have been left hanging, (like who was John Doe?) the more I realize just how corrupt and untrustworthy certain segments of the FBI and CIA have become. That woman reporter, Shippers, and numerous eye witnesses like this motel clerk were on to something. The FBI shut them all up. Why?
Call me a tin-foil hatter. I don't see any logical or truthful explanation to the story that only two guys were responsible for this April 19th horror and that they had no ties to or help from any other group.
This is called cleaning up the evidence. How Bush could pick the now fired John McGaw, former BATF head to run Transportation Security is amazing.
The motel owner said he and his staff reported this information to the FBI in 1995. "We did have an ATF agent come out and collect the originals of the room registrations for that period, but we never heard back from them. And I never could get the registrations returned."
McVeigh and a bunch of Iraqis moving drums of diesel on a flatbed truck.
Huh.
Nothing to see here.
And, just to be certain, we'll take the originals of the room registrations.
Look up here at my flashlight. . .hold it. . .FLASH--
You were saying. . . .
SNIP
A former desk clerk at the motel -- a different clerk from the one who purportedly dealt with Atta and Moussaoui -- told the Weekly that he remembered Menepta because in 1994 and 1995 -- prior to the Oklahoma City attack -- Menepta frequently visited the motel office. There, he bought coffee and talked for hours to this clerk.
The clerk and his wife, who both formerly worked at the motel, said they picked Menepta's picture out of a photo lineup prepared by a law-enforcement officer who had interviewed the motel owner.
Reporter: Kara Kaswell, News 4
November 7, 2001 7:44 PM
(KMOV) -- The FBI wants to know more about Mujahid Menepta's alleged ties to terrorism. Menepta is friends with an associate of Osama bin Laden who is considered to be the "20th hijacker" involved in the terrorists attacks. Menepta, who grew up in North St. Louis, was arrested in a federal roundup following the attacks. He is now charged with illegal possession of firearms.
(supposed to be a photo of Menepta here, but a photo of Moussaoui is inserted above Menepta's mame)
Mujahid Menepta (KMOV)
Menepta defends his friend who is accused of having ties to the hijackers and September 11 terrorist attacks. Zacarias Moussaoui was arrested after seeking pilot training to steer but not land jets. Menepta says his friend is no terrorist.
Days after a TV interview, Menepta, a St. Louis native who has a felony arrest record, was arrested for possessing three guns, including a semi-automatic pistol.
"They had a lot of questions, no doubt about that," says Chester Buchanan.
One of the pistols seized from Menepta was registered to Buchanan of St. Louis. He says the gun was stolen in August. Menepta told the FBI he bought the gun on the street in St. Louis for $125. The FBI questioned Buchanan about the gun.
"What they told me is that the gun was found with a man that might be connected to September 11 and the terrorists. I was stunned, I sure was," Buchanan says.
Menepta grew up Melvin Lattimore in a duplex on Maple in North St. Louis. He attended Soldan High School where he played football. In 1989, he converted to Islam and changed his name.
"I think it's unfair that the government has him in jail. It's a conspiracy on the government's part," says Leon Lattimore, Menepta's brother.
Lattimore says Menepta often prayed at a storefront mosque on Geraldine in North St. Louis and he adds that his brother's religion does not advocate violence and that Menepta is definitely no terrorist.
"I think they are jumping to conclusions. My brother is terrorist nothing," Lattimore says.
Wednesday, a federal court denied bond to Menepta. Instead, they want to further investigate his possible ties to terrorists. He roomed with Moussaoui, who has been linked to the hijackers. An FBI agent also said Wednesday in court that North St. Louis mosque where he worshipped did at one time stockpile weapons.
Moussaoui's friend gets prison term
A Norman man who came under federal investigation because of his friendship with accused terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui was sentenced Wednesday to 15 months in federal prison.
Majahid Abdulquaadir Menepta, 51, admitted to being a convicted felon in possession of firearms and was sentenced by U.S. District Judge David Russell.
However, Menepta's association with the accused terrorist during the general time period when Moussaoui was undergoing flight training in Norman is the reason Menepta came under suspicion.
Moussaoui was indicted in December on a federal charge of conspiring with Osama bin Laden, the 19 hijackers and others to carry out the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon in which more than 3,000 people were killed.
After Moussaoui's arrest, Menepta told The Oklahoman that he had seen Moussaoui daily at a Norman mosque, had shared meals with him and believed his friend was being made a "scapegoat."
Federal agents investigating the attacks arrested Menepta on a material witness warrant Oct. 11. During a search of his home, agents found a loaded Chinese military-style semiautomatic rifle, a 12- gauge shotgun and a loaded .380- caliber pistol, as well as knives and a bag of ammunition.
Menepta is prohibited from owning guns because he was convicted in 1971 in Colorado of a felony -- aggravated robbery. He spent more than three years in prison.
Menepta also was arrested in 1997 during a demonstration in St. Louis and was put on probation for carrying a concealed weapon.
Menepta was born in Missouri as Melvin Lattimore. He converted to Islam and changed his name in 1989.
An informant told the FBI in 1995 that Menepta was a violent individual who belonged to a radical Islamic group that hated the United States and talked of destroying government targets.
However, Susan Otto(McVeigh's first attorney), Menepta's defense attorney, told Russell on Wednesday her client credits his conversion to Islam with turning his life around and "saving him from a life of bad behavior
November 10, 2001
No Bail for Friend of Man Suspected of Preparing for Sept. 11 Hijackings
By JO THOMAS
An Oklahoma friend of Zacarias Moussaoui, the man the authorities suspect was meant to be the 20th suicide hijacker in the Sept. 11 attacks, has been ordered held without bail on weapons charges by a federal magistrate in Oklahoma City.
The Oklahoma man, Mujahid Abdulqaadir Menepta, 51, who was arrested on Oct. 11 and taken to New York as a material witness in the World Trade Center investigation, is dangerous and poses a flight risk, Jeffrey Whitney, an agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, testified at a hearing on Wednesday. He made no specific reference to Mr. Moussaoui.
Without offering many details, Mr. Whitney told the court that some telephone numbers connected with cellphones seized in a search of Mr. Menepta's home in Norman were associated with continuing criminal investigations in Oklahoma City, St. Louis, Detroit, El Paso and Kansas City, Mo. These involve organized crime, drugs and money laundering, he said.
Mr. Whitney told the court that Mr. Menepta, who was born Melvin Lattimore in St. Louis, and changed his name in 1989 after converting to Islam, came to the attention of the authorities the day after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. He testified that an informer told federal agents that Mr. Menepta had belonged to an Islamic group in Norman and St. Louis, whose leaders advocated terrorist acts and killing law enforcement agents.
Mr. Whitney also told the court that Mr. Menepta had said the Secret Service told him that one of the terrorists who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993 had used his visa number. Mr. Whitney said he could not confirm Mr. Menepta's account.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Menepta, who lives in Norman, gave several interviews in which he defended Mr. Moussaoui, 33, whom he knew through a mosque. Mr. Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent was arrested in Minneapolis on Aug. 17 on immigration charges after he sought lessons on how to fly jets, but expressed no interest in learning how to take off or land.
Mr. Moussaoui lived in Norman last year while a student at the Airman Flight School there. Mr. Menepta told The Daily Oklahoman in an interview on Oct. 2 that he had seen Mr. Moussaoui every day at a local mosque and would be shocked if he were involved in the attacks.
"I think he's a scapegoat," Mr. Menepta told the newspaper in an article published on Oct. 9.
He was arrested as a material witness two days later. Shortly afterward, federal agents said they found a shotgun, a rifle, a semiautomatic pistol and more than 600 rounds of ammunition at Mr. Menepta's home. He told the agents he used the shotgun for hunting.
Mr. Menepta served time in prison for a 1970 robbery in Colorado and was charged with being a felon in possession of firearms.
Susan Otto(McVeigh's first defense attorney), Mr. Menepta's lawyer in Oklahoma City, on Wednesday questioned the truthfulness of the government's informer and observed that no one had been charged with a crime back in 1995.
Mr. Menepta's mother, Cynthia Lattimore, 87, said her son collected guns, nothing more. "He just likes guns," she said. "Not to kill nobody."
Now this. I'm reaching for my tin foil.