First charge laid in hijacking investigation
globeandmail.ca
By TU THANH HA and JILL MAHONEY
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
Criminal charges have for the first time been formally filed against someone accused of helping the hijackers who engineered the Sept. 11 suicide attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
A Virginia man, Herbert Villalobos, was charged Monday with helping the terrorists obtain bogus drivers licences last month. According to the charges, Mr. Villalobos and an acquaintance, who both seemed unaware they were helping terrorists, took money from Arabic men in return for stating that they were legitimate Virginia residents.
The criminal charges came as NBC-TV news quoted anonymous sources as saying that terrorists had also planned to hijack a plane in Canada. The report could not be confirmed last night.
Other reports in recent days about the terrorist plot against the United States said that the hijackers had also considered using crop-dusting planes to spray some chemical or biological agent.
Crop-dusting planes remained grounded in the continental United States for a second consecutive day, until midnight Monday.
Investigators have confirmed that hijacker Mohamed Atta "was acquiring knowledge of crop-dusting aircraft before the attack on Sept. 11," Attorney- General John Ashcroft told U.S. legislators Monday.
Mr. Atta is believed to be the ringleader of the hijackers and to have piloted American Airlines Flight 11, the first to crash into the World Trade Center in New York.
"The FBI issued a nationwide alert based on information they received indicating the possibility of attacks using crop-dusting aircraft," Mr. Ashcroft told the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee. "The FBI assesses the uses of this type of aircraft to distribute chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction as potential threats to Americans."
In July, former Montreal resident Ahmed Ressam told his New York terrorism trial that his training in Afghanistan included gassing live dogs, part of a lesson on using cyanide vapors in office-building ventilation systems.
People in the agricultural industry say it would be very difficult for a potential terrorist to wreak havoc with a crop-duster. Owners of the specialized planes — there are between 300 and 400 in Canada — are extremely protective of their aircraft and do not rent them out or allow other people to fly them.
"It's not something that you're just going to let anyone use," said Jill Lane, manager of the Canadian Aerial Applicators Association.
As well, even qualified pilots would need special training to fly the planes, which are heavy and have complicated mechanisms for releasing pesticides.
While flight schools in Canada and the United States offer agricultural pilot training, someone planning to hijack or steal one of the planes would likely have trouble concealing their chemical or biological weapon of choice. Purchasing a crop-duster is also fraught with red tape, something a potential terrorist would doubtless find burdensome.
Ms. Lane said her group has passed on the concerns of its U.S. counterparts to its 300 members.
Reports in the United States say that Mr. Atta, last February and during the summer, inquired in Florida about leasing a crop-duster, asking questions about their load and handling.
In addition, Mr. Ashcroft confirmed Monday that the FBI has also found a "significant amount of information" about aerial pesticide spraying, downloaded from the Internet, in the luggage of another arrested suspect.
Zacarias Moussaoui was arrested in August after arousing suspicions in Minnesota when he tried to seek flight simulator training for a large jetliner.
Mr. Moussaoui, 33, arrested for using fraudulent papers, had enrolled at flight schools in Minneapolis, Minn., and Norman, Okla. He has been reported as being Algerian-born, but his mother, Aicha, said he is of Moroccan origin and grew up in France. She told the French magazine L'Express that her son was wooed into fundamentalist Islamic circles while studying in London in the early 1990s. "They brainwashed him," she said.
To date, 353 people have been have arrested or detained in the United States, Mr. Ashcroft said.
Mr. Villalobos is the first to face charges linking him directly to the 19 dead hijackers. He and another acquaintance were part of a group standing outside a motor-vehicle registration office in Arlington, Va., near Washington when they were approached by three Arabic men.
An FBI affidavit filed with the charges says that the two Hispanic men also saw the hijackers obtain the signature of a lawyer — who spoke to the Arab men in a foreign language — to help them complete the forms.
Apparently, up to five of the 19 terrorists tried to get fraudulent Virginia papers.
Mr. Villalobos's friend is identified in the document only as a Hispanic man, suggesting that he is a co-operative witness whose identity is being kept confidential.
Meanwhile, the wife of Ahmad Shehab, a Toronto imam who put up a $7,500 bond in July to free his nephew, Nabil al-Marabh, from a Citizenship and Immigration Canada detention centre, lashed out at the media last night.
Ms. Shehab, who refused give her first name, said reports that Mr. al-Marabh, a onetime Toronto resident who was deported from Canada in 1995, may be connected to Osama bin Laden were yet to be proven. Mr. bin Laden, who is believed to be in hiding in Afghanistan, is suspected of being the mastermind behind the U.S. terror attacks.
"All this mess. You don't know how we are suffering from all this," Ms. Shehab said.
Ms. Shehab said that the RCMP have yet to determine that the man who once stayed with her at their small two-bedroom Toronto apartment is the same man who was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigations in Chicago earlier this week for questioning in connection with the lethal hijackings.
"The media is making up stories about everything," she said.
Ms. Shehab said, however, that when she saw a picture of Mr. al-Marabh on the television news, she asked her husband if it was his nephew.
"He said: 'I think so," Ms. Shehab said.
In a notice posted on its on its Web site, the U.S. National Agricultural Aviation Association Monday urged members "to be vigilant to any suspicious activity relative to the use, training in or acquisition of dangerous chemicals . . . Members should report any suspicious circumstances or information to local FBI offices."
Peter Coyles, a spokesman for Transport Canada, said Canadian crop-dusters are not currently subject to any restrictions. But he said crop-dusters, like all other planes, were grounded for several days beginning Sept. 11.
However, he said Transport Canada has placed "enhanced security measures" on the operation of crop-dusters.
Most Canadian crop-dusters are now out of use because the country's growing and harvest season is coming to a close. However, the aircraft are being heavily used in many warm U.S. states. |
