Washington Post More Than 350 Held in Probe, Ashcroft Says By Mary Beth Sheridan and Brooke A. Masters More than 350 people have been swept up in the massive dragnet for
witnesses and suspects cast since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New
York and Washington, and nearly 400 others are still being sought for
questioning, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft said yesterday. None of the detainees has been charged with a crime directly related to
the attacks, which left nearly 7,000 people missing or dead, Justice
Department officials said. Instead, most are being held on immigration
charges and traffic violations, and virtually none has been publicly
identified. Justice Department officials say that the large number of detentions
reflects the breadth and complexity of the largest criminal investigation
in U.S. history and continued uncertainty about how many people may have
aided the 19 hijackers. In revealing that law enforcement officers have taken into custody many
more people than they have previously acknowledged, Ashcroft said that 98
are being held by the Immigration and Naturalization Service on alleged
immigration violations, and many of the remaining 254 have been charged
with traffic offenses, identification fraud or other minor crimes. In the first arrest of someone charged with aiding the hijackers, an
Arlington man was accused yesterday of helping five of the suspected
attackers fraudulently obtain Virginia driver's licenses or identity
cards. Court documents released yesterday show that five alleged hijackers
from three flights picked up those documents in Arlington on Aug. 2, just
40 days before the attacks. In other developments yesterday: • A government official confirmed that box-cutter knives similar to
those used by the terrorists have been found aboard four planes that
either took off or were grounded Sept. 11 as the hijackings were
occurring. They include an American Airlines flight from San Diego that
was kept on the ground when the attacks occurred and then taken for
routine maintenance to Dallas, where the knives were found. • The FAA extended its latest ban on crop-dusting for a second day amid
fears of biological or chemical attacks, and a Florida bank president said
that one of the suspected terrorists may have sought a government loan to
buy a crop-duster last year. • Dozens of undocumented immigrants working at U.S. airports, including
Dulles International Airport, have been detained in recent days as
authorities crack down on security. An FBI affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Alexandria revealed
that on Aug. 2, a man identified as Herbert Villalobos and a confidential
witness signed notarized forms falsely stating that several Arab men they
had met a few minutes earlier were Virginia residents. The notarized forms allowed the men to exploit a now-closed Virginia
legal loophole and obtain valid licenses or identification cards even
though they did not live in the state. According to the affidavit, Villalobos identified five of the hijackers
as having been at the Department of Motor Vehicles that day: Hani Hanjour,
Salem Alhazmi and Majed Moqed, who were all aboard American Flight 77,
which hit the Pentagon; Ahmed Alghamdi, who was on United 175, which hit
the World Trade Center; and Abdulaziz Alomari on American Flight 11, which
also hit the New York landmark. Sources and other court documents indicate that two other Flight 77
hijackers, Khalid Al-Midhar and Nawaq Alhazmi, also obtained Virginia
licenses about the same time. Law enforcement sources said there is no evidence that either
Villalobos, who is being held, or the witness had any advance knowledge of
the attacks. Villalobos's attorney, Mike Lieberman, declined to
comment. New information also emerged yesterday about the discovery of
box-cutters on other U.S. airliners after the terrorist attacks. The
Washington Post has previously reported that the tools were found on two
flights in addition to the ones hijacked, and that investigators were
looking into the possibility that there were knives on two more. Yesterday, an aviation source said a box-cutter was found on an
American Airlines plane that had been scheduled to fly from San Diego to
New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport at 8:20 a.m. Pacific time
on Sept. 11 but did not leave when all flights were grounded after the
attacks. The instrument turned up Sept. 17, as mechanics at the airline's
maintenance facility in Alliance, Tex., began an overhaul of the plane. As
mechanics removed seat cushions, a dark gun-metal gray box-cutter knife
fell to the floor, the source said. There is dispute about whether the
knife was in the seat or taped to it, the source said. The box-cutter has been turned over to the FBI. Officials continued to
emphasize yesterday that it is unclear whether there is an innocent
explanation for the five knives now known to have been found on four
flights. Officials said yesterday that tightened security has led to the
detention of dozens of airport employees in Miami, Denver, Washington and
other cities for lack of proper immigration papers. There was no
indication that those detained were related to the terrorism
investigation. At Dulles International, INS officials have detained at least four
employees, according to Argenbright Security, the company that employs
them. Bill Barbour, president of the Atlanta-based company, said he didn't
know the employees' identities, nationalities or occupations or the
charges they faced. One employee detained was a Lebanese immigrant working as a security
guard, his lawyer said. The worker, Abdullah Salim Yassine, had an H-1B
professional visa and was charged with switching employers without
informing the INS, said Denyse Sabagh, the attorney. Sabagh said Yassine, 45, of Fairfax, was placed in deportation hearings
and was being held without bond, an unusually strict measure. "I think
this is probably happening to a lot of other people from Middle Eastern
countries, and other countries on some list. They are detaining people
even if they have nothing to do with what happened," she said. A spokeswoman for the local INS office, Ernestine Fobbs, declined to
comment. The Dulles investigation and a similar one in Miami had been planned
before the Sept. 11 attacks, according to the Department of
Transportation's inspector general's office, which conducted the checks.
The Miami probe culminated with the arrest on Sept. 14 of a dozen
undocumented immigrants from South America who worked at Miami
International Airport. In at least one other case, undocumented workers were detected by
enhanced security checks instituted by the airport itself. Twenty-nine Mexicans working at Denver International Airport were
detained Sept. 19 for using counterfeit identity documents and are being
deported, said Nina Pruneda-Muniz, a local INS spokeswoman. The workers'
phony IDs were discovered when they applied for airport badges required
under a new, stricter security system, airport spokesman Chuck Cannon
said. One chapter of the investigation into the hijackings ended yesterday,
as the FBI concluded its search for wreckage from United Airlines Flight
93, which slammed into a field in Pennsylvania. Investigators said they
found no evidence of an explosion -- a possibility raised after a
passenger told his mother by phone that the hijackers claimed to have a
bomb. Staff writers Dan Eggen, Don Phillips and Susan Schmidt contributed
to this report. Copyright © 2001. Washington Post. All rights reserved. saved from url: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19686-2001Sep24.html
September 25, 2001
FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of criminal justice, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
