9/11 hijackers ‘were quizzed over visas’
Hijacker Saeed al Ghamdi was referred to immigration inspection officials in June 2001 after he provided no address on his customs form and only had a one-way plane ticket and about $500. But Al Ghamdi was able to persuade the inspector that he was a tourist.
“Our government did not fully exploit al-Qaida’s travel vulnerabilities,” the commission said at the start of a two-day public hearing on border and aviation security.
They also found that at least six of the hijackers violated immigration laws by overstaying their visas or failing to attend the English language school for which their visas were issued.
Among the speakers at yesterday’s hearing was a customs agent, Jose E Melendez-Perez, credited with denying entry to a man believed to have been the intended 20th hijacker.
Melendez-Perez stopped a man identified as al-Qahtani at Florida’s Orlando International Airport in late August 2001. The agent became suspicious when al-Qahtani provided only vague answers about what he was doing in the United States.
US officials then put al-Qahtani on a plane back to Saudi Arabia. He wound up in Afghanistan, where he was captured by American forces. He now is being held with other captives at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Today’s hearing will focus on vulnerabilities and security failures within the nation’s aviation system and the response to the hijackings that killed more than 3,000 people at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and in southwestern Pennsylvania.
The hearing comes as the panel scrambles to meet a May 27 deadline to complete its report for the president and Congress.
The 10-member, bipartisan commission has been bogged down by disputes with the Bush administration and New York City officials over access to documents and witnesses.
