Free Republic

In April 1996, more than five years before he steered American Airlines Flight 11 into the North Tower, Mohamed Atta sat in a small Hamburg apartment and wrote his last will and testament. He was 27, an architecture student at the Technical University, the son of a Cairo lawyer, fluent in German, and living comfortably in one of the most affluent societies on earth. Nothing in his circumstances compelled him to dwell on death. Yet he gave detailed instructions for the handling of his corpse. “I don’t want any women to go to my grave at all during my funeral...

By John Crewdson, Tribune senior correspondent. Reporting and research assistance was provided by Drew Crosby in Madrid MADRID -- The most sweeping criminal indictment to arise thus far from the Sept. 11 attacks reflects a quiet but dramatic change in understanding by investigators here and across Europe of the terrorist organization known as Al Qaeda, and the international Islamic radical-terrorist network of which, they now agree, it is merely a part. As laid out in the indictment, the defendants' alleged activities--from arranging travel and providing introductions to procuring false documents and, especially, moving money--provide the first detailed look at one...