FBI searches Saudi family's former home
By Scott McCabe and Eliot Kleinberg, Palm Beach Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, January 22, 2003
GREENACRES -- FBI agents Tuesday night searched the former home of a Saudi family who a neighbor said had enrolled an adult son in a nearby flight training school and had left "in a hurry" two days before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Neighbors and state records identified the head of the family as Mohamad Almasri, 57. According to state records, others who lived at the house in the upscale neighborhood near Jog Road and Forest Hill Boulevard were Madawi Almasri, 26, Turki Ma Almasri, 22, and Afaf I. Arif, 47.
Neighbors said Almasri lived at the home with his wife, a son and daughter in their late teens or early twenties, and a younger son and daughter.
Several agents, some in white biohazard suits, arrived Tuesday afternoon at the home at 1606 Doral Drive in Fairway Isles, a gated community, neighbors said. Into the night, agents went in and out of the home, carrying plastic and paper bags, and dug up parts of the front yard. Neighbors said they saw the agents carrying what appeared to be metal detectors. A large pickup hauling a large metal trailer was backed up to the front door.
Miami FBI spokeswoman Judy Orihuela said Tuesday night that the agents were acting on a search warrant. She would not say what they were looking for or might have found or whether there was any link to the ongoing national terrorism investigations. At least 12 of the 19 terrorists who hijacked jets on Sept. 11 had addresses showing they once lived in Palm Beach County.
Lisa Dickerson said she watched Mohamad Almasri hustle his family into their car on Sept. 9, 2001. She said that a few days after the attacks, when news reports began focusing on possible connections between the terrorists and the nearby Lantana airport, she called a special national FBI hot line.
"It was just the way he put them in," Dickerson said. "It happened so fast."
Neighbors milled Tuesday night behind yellow crime scene tape that stretched in front of the home and across Doral Drive to the front yard of Rodney Lamarca. Lamarca said Almasri told him he was an engineer. Lamarca said the FBI had searched the home about two weeks ago. He did not know whether that had been the agency's first visit.
"Now they are back like gangbusters," Lamarca said. "They must have found something."
Lamarca said homeowner association president Dave Remsen told him FBI agents had said they removed a computer and disks. Remsen told him FBI agents said the family packed up so quickly that food was left on the table. Lamarca said last week he saw the FBI use tools to unlock a car that had been sitting in the garage.
"I didn't know it was there," Lamarca said.
Martha Ruth, Dickerson's mother, said she was told the couple's son, Turki, 22, was attending one of the three flight schools at the nearby Lantana airport.
Palm Beach Flight Training owner Marian Smith said Turki had not trained there. Kemper Aviation manager David Allison said he would not have access to records until the morning. Officials at Chandelle Aviation said they would check Tuesday night but did not call back.
Owen Gassaway, Jr., who runs the commercial operation at the airport, said he keeps photographs and names of all suspected terrorists that the FBI has asked airports and flight schools to monitor. He said he checked them Tuesday night and "nothing matched."
155 posted on 01/22/2003 3:02 AM CST by FL_engineer
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