FBI's release of names criticized

09/21/2001

DEVELOPMENTS • The FBI reported that a man wanted for questioning was captured outside Chicago. Nabil Al-Marabh, 34, was arrested Wednesday night in suburban Justice. He was being held on an assault warrant issued in March in Boston. • Two Indian Muslims arrested in Fort Worth as material witnesses had obtained passports with false information, and one was using an alias, police in southern India said Thursday. • The CIA denounced a story in Thursday's Los Angeles Times as "complete and utter nonsense." The report stated that Israel's Mossad intelligence service had warned U.S. intelligence in August that as many as 200 Muslims connected with terrorism were slipping into the United States.

WASHINGTON – The FBI's terrorism investigation came under fire Thursday over growing indications that the agency may have been too quick to say it knew who the suicide hijackers were.

Several of those who commandeered jetliners last week apparently assumed the names of other Middle Easterners, according to information coming from the United States, Saudi Arabia and beyond.

Last Friday, the Justice Department released the names of 19 people that it said had crashed four jetliners in the eastern United States. FBI Director Robert Mueller said at the time that he was fairly confident the names were not aliases, though he cautioned that investigators were still gathering information.

But Thursday, he sounded less confident.

"We have several hijackers whose identities were those of the names" on airline passenger lists, he said. "We have several others that are still in question."

Those doubts threaten to further complicate a worldwide investigation that already has dozens of suspects and thousands of law officers chasing leads. There may be no way to verify some hijackers' identities because their bodies were destroyed in the plane crashes.

Identity theft or use of fraudulent documents "would make the investigation that much more difficult," said Justice Department spokeswoman Mindy Tucker. "How much more, I don't know."

Those criticizing the U.S. investigation include Saudi Arabian officials, whose cooperation the Bush administration needs in preparing for strikes against prime suspect Osama bin Laden.

In Washington, the Saudi Embassy said it had confirmed that at least two of the hijackers were using the identities of Saudis whose passports were stolen years ago. U.S. officials did not back that assertion, but Denver police did say that they took a passport-theft report in 1995 from a man whose name was the same as one on the FBI's list of 19.

The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud Al-Faisal, was at the White House on Thursday and was asked afterward about the Saudi names on the FBI's list.

He responded that at least five of those named "had no connection at all with what happened. ... Our hope is that there would be an effort to make sure before information like that is published."

Earlier, a Saudi Foreign Ministry diplomat, Ahmed Alshehri, complained to the Saudi newspaper Al-Medina of an "obvious American haphazardness in throwing accusations at innocent people," saying that "many of those mentioned as suspects appeared to be still around."

Mr. Alshehri's son is a pilot whose name is the same as that of a pilot on the list released by the FBI last week, Al-Medina said. According to The Associated Press, Al-Medina said it had interviewed the son since the attacks and that he believed he had been slandered in the United States.

Attempts by the AP to interview Saudis who say they were named as suicide hijackers have failed, reportedly because they have been instructed by Saudi authorities not to talk to the media. That prohibition apparently does not apply to the Saudi press, which is closely monitored by the government.

Other threads in the tangled identity web:

• In Egypt, the father of another man identified as a dead hijacker has said he recognized his son from photographs in newspapers – but insisted that he had spoken to him after the attacks took place.

• In India, police officials said that both men arrested last week on a train in Fort Worth had obtained passports with false information. They have been identified by U.S. authorities as Ayub Ali Khan, 51, and Mohammed Jaweed Azmath, 47. Indian police said they actually are, respectively, Gul Mohammed Shah, 32, and Mohammed Jaweed Azmat, also 32.

Both remained jailed on material-witness warrants in connection with the terrorism investigation. They were arrested with box cutters – the type of weapon used by some hijackers – plus hair dye and thousands of dollars in cash.

• One man identified by the FBI last week as a dead hijacker was listed as alive on an alert this week asking banks to check for suspects' financial transactions.

Men previously listed as dead remain on the FBI's lengthy "watch list" of people wanted for questioning – which hasn't been made public – because so many identities remain murky, one federal official said. "We're not taking any names off the list," the official said.

A copy of the watch list obtained by The Dallas Morning News includes at least 18 people whose names were identical or very similar to those listed in federal records as having aviation experience. Among the 18 were names apparently matching those of people who work for the Saudi national airline. The airline's pilots routinely train at a Florida flight school.

Immigration experts say that using a Saudi identity would have helped terrorists get into the country relatively easily. That country has far better relations with the United States than most others in the Middle East.

Dr. Richard H. Ward, dean of Sam Houston State University's College of Criminal Justice, said identity theft is relatively easy and is "one of the largest-growing crime problems."

Immigration and Naturalization Service inspectors are trained to "pick up any type of forged document or something that's counterfeited," spokeswoman Kimberly Weissman said. But some criminals have been able to avoid doctoring paperwork by purchasing passports or visas with false information from corrupt officials, Dr. Ward said.

Hussein Ibish, with the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Washington, said he was troubled by reports that the hijackers may have been using other people's names.

"First of all, it makes the conspiracy even larger and more complex, as if it wasn't complex enough," he said. "And obviously, when people are accused of having been involved in this, life becomes difficult for them as well as their relatives."

Eric E. Sterling, president of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, a think tank that studies a variety of law enforcement issues, said the public release of reputed hijacker names has given the FBI "another black eye" and undermined the bureau's credibility at a critical time.

"I was very pleasantly surprised that they appeared to have the names of the hijackers so quickly," said Mr. Sterling. "My reaction was, 'Wow, this is an impressive piece of police work.' Now that it has to be accompanied by a big 'oops' is very disappointing."

FBI officials didn't respond directly to the criticism Thursday. But one member of the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI suggested that the early release of names may have been a calculated tactic.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said that the release could draw out people who may have known the men by their aliases. And it could bring forth leads from people whose identities had been stolen.

"I think, because of the exigent circumstances, that this was by far the quickest way to get the information out," he said.

Staff writers Jim Landers in Washington and Todd Bensman, Lee Hancock, Ed Timms and Diane Jennings in Dallas contributed to this report, as did The Associated Press.