Terrorist's Name On Manifest Raises Questions About Saudi Flights After 9/11

List and testimony indicates FBI may have allowed alleged hijacker's kin to leave U.S. with son of Saudi defense minister without questioning them.

by Tom Flocco

WASHINGTON - April 4, 2004 -- Posted 07:45 ET -- TomFlocco.com -- A copy of a previously unpublished manifest, obtained late Thursday night and dated September 15, 2001, provides evidence of a private Boeing-727 Saudi flight from Lexington, Kentucky to London.  But the names on the manifest raise serious questions about FBI policies and procedures related to witness identification, criminal investigations and obstruction of justice.

Ahmad A. M. Alhazmi, 20, (Saudi passport no. B805019) is listed on the manifest with Prince Sultan bin Fahad bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, 19, (Saudi passport no. 406 A), son of Saudi defense minister Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdulaziz. 

The name Alhazmi and its ties to laundered Riggs Bank cashiers checks may become a subject of interest when National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice testifies later this week--especially since young Ahmad Alhazmi has the same last name as Nawaf Alhazmi, one of the terrorists identified as an alleged hijacker of American Airlines flight 77.          

The White House had originally asserted that flights evacuating Saudis from the United States after 9/11 never existed, but author Craig Unger--who has written a book about clandestine Bush-Saudi relationships--obtained flight manifest lists which were drawn up by the Saudi embassy.

Besides the Alhazmi list, three other manifests confirm a total of four separate Saudi flights leaving the United States on September 15, 16, 22 and 24, 2001, after the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks.  Unger, author of "House of Bush / House of Saud:  The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties," has now posted all four manifests online.  (http://www.houseofbush.com/files.php)

Alhazmi's associates received continued payments of $3,500. per month from Princess Haifa Al-Faisal, wife of Saudi Crown Prince Bandar bin Sultan who is Ambassador to the United States, according to sources familiar with the financial evidence. (Newsweek, 11-22-2002)

Both Saudis visited President Bush's Texas ranch in late August, 2002--before this news broke--but Americans will never hear Mr. Bush publicly discuss the contents of their conversations, or Bandar and Haifa's signed checks made out to terrorist associates through his uncle's Riggs Bank.  9/11 Commission Chairman Thomas Kean negotiated away the important opportunity for personal, public presidential testimony under oath in exchange for Condoleezza Rice's public testimony.

Interestingly, Kean stumbled slightly this morning when Meet the Press host Tim Russert asked him why Bush and Vice-President Cheney were testifying together, and why former President Clinton and Vice-President Gore were not being offered the same opportunity. 

Bush and Cheney will not be under oath, allowing joint corroboration of each other's testimony on-the-spot regarding their actions during the key two hour time-line of the actual attacks--thus avoiding possible future perjury charges and/or impeachment proceedings.

Favorable testimony deals notwithstanding, internet controversy  continues to rage because the Commission conducts 90 % of its investigation in secret, failing to hear public testimony from boarding gate personnel, cleanup and catering crews with less security scrutiny, air traffic controllers, military pilots in the air on 9/11 and their ordinance crews, Securities & Exchange commissioners who ordered the still-secret "control list" of pre-attack insider trades, and Lockheed-Martin officials who hold the air-traffic system contract--for an explanation as to whether the integrity and control of the doomed jets could have been compromised in any manner. 

Instead, Americans have been forced to accept the politically expedient desire to conclude well before November's election--stampeding the most important investigation since Watergate--to avoid electoral ramifications at the expense of truth, accountability and justice.

Relative of alleged hijacker permitted to leave country without questioning?  

During last week's hearing testimony, 9-11 Commissioner Timothy Roemer asked Richard Clarke, former Bush Administration National Coordinator for Counterterrorism for the National Security Council (NSC), "Who gave the final approval for the bin Laden family to leave the country without being interviewed?" 

Clarke answered that it could have been the "Inter-Agency Crisis Management Group, but most likely it was the White House Chief of Staff's office or the State Department." [according to this writer's notes / Commission transcripts for March 23 - 24, 2004 should be available soon at http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/index.htm ]

When Roemer asked "why the Saudis were allowed to leave the country, who was on the planes, how many, and why the decision was made," Clarke said the government "feared for their lives...some of them were bin Laden family members, and the Saudi embassy requested their evacuation."

During testimony Clarke told Roemer "I refused to approve the [Saudi] request.  I passed it on to [FBI Asst. Director] Dale Watson and the flight was approved....I don't think they were ever interviewed in this country."  Only transcripts and/or video would negate Clarke's assertion.

Clarke only mentioned one flight.  And it is not known whether the counter-terrorism chief was kept in the dark about the other flights, as Roemer did not mention the now-public manifests.  The commission has not revealed publicly whether it knows about Ahmad Alhazmi and Prince Sultan bin Fahad, fueling speculation that an investigation of the young Alhazmi may have been suppressed by the FBI or commission executive director Philip Zelikow who controls the inner-workings of the panel's probe.

Publication of the manifests raises important questions whether Kean's panel ever asked the FBI to produce interview notes or video tape, indicating that absent Watson's public testimony, the White House will never have to reveal potential evidence as to the possibility that the young Alhazmi may be alleged hijacker Nawaf Alhazmi's brother or cousin.  If this is so, more questions arise as to why Alhazmi was traveling with the son of the Saudi Minister of Defense and what Alhazmi knew about the attacks.

Dale Watson, who Clarke intimated as the sponsor of the FBI-approved flights and the decision not to interview bin Laden family members and other Saudi royals or citizens, was the former FBI Executive Asst. Director for Counter-Terrorism and Counter-Intelligence. 

Watson led controversial investigations of the first World Trade Center attack, Oklahoma City bombing, East Africa Embassy bombings, Khobar Towers bombings, USS Cole bombing, the September 11 attacks and the anthrax attacks, before retiring to assume a position with Booz Allen Hamilton.

The 'non-existent' flight through closed U.S. air space

There are indications that young Ahmad Alhazmi, along with Saudi prince Sultan bin Fahad, and one other young man on the Lexington to London evacuation flight, were among a select few to fly on September 13, 2001, two days after the attacks, when all planes over U.S. air space were grounded--save a few emergency medical and body-part transplant flights, one of which was forced to use a helicopter to comply with the flight ban.

Since the Lexington-London manifest lists a total of only four men of the same reasonably close age range, there is a 3 out of 4 possibility that a man with the same name as one of the alleged hijackers flew with a Saudi royal from Tampa to Lexington, Kentucky over closed U.S. air space two days after the attacks.

The special Saudi flight has been termed the "phantom flight from Florida,"  since Atlanta Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Chris White said "It's not in our logs...it didn't occur."  But the Tampa Tribune's multiple sources indicate that very high strings were pulled, raising more questions about the identities of the young Alhazmi and Prince.

Private investigator and former Tampa police department homicide and internal affairs officer Dan Grossi said he was told that clearance for the flight came from the White House.  This may confirm Richard Clarke's recent testimony that "most likely it was the White House Chief of Staff's office" who gave the order. 

Grossi said the prince's family [Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdulaziz] pulled a favor from former President Bush--the only indication that it was Bush 41 who first contacted Bush 43 to get the three men out of Florida.  All this, according to the Tampa Tribune.

Tampa University (TU) spokesman George Donaldson refused to offer details but Grossi's fellow bodyguard for the young men, Manuel Perez--a former 29-year FBI counter-terrorism official and bomb technician, said the men arrived in Tampa three weeks earlier to receive tutoring in English.  This, according to the Tribune's Kathy Steele--the one who broke this neglected piece of important evidence, adding that one of the three men Grossi was contacted to protect was the son of a Saudi army commander.

Jim Harf, director of TU's international programs, confirmed that one of the three men was the son of Saudi defense minister Prince Sultan [Abdullah bin Abdulaziz], and Lexington police Lt. Mark Barnard confirmed a Saudi relative had asked for help in getting protection for the men in Tampa.  Tampa police records list Sultan bin Fahad [bin Abdulaziz] as the one requesting the security detail.

Grossi and Perez said they saw "several private 747s parked on the tarmac with foreign flags on the tails and Arabic lettering on the sides," helping to confirm the authenticity of the Saudi embassy manifests.  This, at a time when all U.S. air space was locked down by the United States military under federal orders.

The learjet carrying the three young men to Lexington, Kentucky  took off from a private Raytheon Corporation hanger.  Raytheon is tangled throughout the events surrounding the attacks, not the least of which is the strange death of a Saudi test pilot and two Raytheon test pilots at the Pensacola Naval Air Station.

Interestingly, reporter Dan Hopsicker says the learjet was owned by multimillionaire businessman Wallace J. Hilliard of Naples, Florida, who Hopsicker says owned Huffman Aviation at the Venice Airport since its purchase in 1999--just before State Department officials began to use America's visa program as a tool to allow squadrons of young Arabs into the U.S. to take flying lessons at Huffman.  ( Terror Flight School Owner's Plane Seized for Heroin Trafficking and Spooks and Saudi's in Florida - http://www.madcowprod.com/ )

"Wally Hilliard owns the only charter Lear service in Southwest Florida," said a Hopsicker source.  "If a Lear was flying that day, it would have been his," raising even more questions.

Curiously, in July, 2000, one of Hilliard's jets was seized by federal agents with more than 30 pounds of heroin onboard at the Orlando Executive Airport.  This, at a time when Florida governor Jeb Bush honored Hilliard's operation--Florida Air, Sunrise Airlines and Discover Air--with personal visits and posed for photos with what Hopsicker called the "Discover Air family."

Questions can be raised about Hilliard's operation, which supported a special presidential favor for a Saudi defense minister's son, a Saudi army commander's son, and also their friend--who may have been the relative of an alleged hijacker.  Anyone who followed the Afghanistan war knows that the chief product for export by Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization was heroin--another source of funds to support terrorism in America. 

Hopsicker said local police collected all the hijacker flight training files from Hilliard's Huffman Aviation School the day after the attacks--detailing information that would have confirmed or denied the flight capabilities of the hijackers and sources of their funding support. 

Just five days before the attacks on September 7, Governor Bush signed executive order No. 01-261, declaring the authority "to order members of the Florida National Guard into active service...to support law enforcement and emergency management in the the event of civil disturbances or natural disasters..."

Curiously, according to one local law enforcement official, “The FBI took all our files, everything.” Then he added, “they loaded two Ryder trucks right outside that (police station) window, then drove them right onto a [Florida National Guard] C130 military cargo plane at Sarasota airport which flew out with [Governor] Jeb Bush aboard.”

No one knows where the President's brother went with the FBI officials and the hijacker flight training evidence, fueling speculation that both Congress and the 9-11 Commission are hiding something by refusing to call the Florida governor to testify publicly about why he activated the National Guard and what happened to the terrorist's records--documents that should be considered crucial evidence.

Journalist Catherine Arnie posed some interesting questions that the 9-11 Commission should be asking Condoleezza Rice this Thursday:  How could our governement have authorized a flight out of the country before they even knew who the perpetrators of the attacks were?  Why did the families of the young men "perceive a threat" when it wasn't yet clear on the 13th of September exactly WHO had attacked America or where they were from? (http://www.democrats.com/view.cfm?id=14289)

Arnie said according to a transcript on the State Department website of a statement given by a "senior government official," on September 13 at 5:22 pm, it had not yet been announced that Osama bin Laden was behind the attacks when protection was requested for the three young men by Bush 41 and Bush 43.

Hijacked bank

Questions also remain regarding the web of money transfers from Princess Haifa, Prince Bandar and the daughter of late King Faisal, some of which reached Nawaf Alhazmi and fellow terrorist Khalid Almihdar.

Princess Haifa's bank account--the source of the funds which ultimately supported the alleged hijackers--was with Riggs Bank where Jonathan J. Bush, the brother of former President George H. W. Bush and uncle of President George W. Bush, is CEO, President and Director of  Riggs' investment management subsidiary.

Cashiers checks were sent to Majeda Ibrahin Dweikat, who signed them over to her friend Manal Ahmed Bagader, wife of Omar al-Bayoumi who met and befriended Alhazmi and Almihdar when they arrived in the U.S. 

After Al Bayoumi fled the U.S. to England in July, 2001--two months before the attacks, Princess Haifa's Riggs Bank checks were then sent to Osama Basnan, who with his wife Majeda Dweikat, were both later to be found in the U.S. illegally as a result of poor or suspicious State Department visa supervision.

Former FBI linguist Sibel Edmonds said she found evidence of espionage in both the State Department and the FBI in pre-9/11 translations of intelligence intercepts--which also warned about planes used as weapons well before the attacks.

A federal law enforcement source said Basnan was a known "al-Qaeda sympathizer" who "celebrated the heroes of September 11" at a party after the attacks and openly talked about "what a wonderful, glorious day it had been," according to Newsweek.

Al Bayoumi and Basnan both befriended Alhazmi and fellow Saudi hijacker Khalid Almihdar after they arrived in San Diego, according to the sources; and the Riggs checks from Prince Bandar's wife helped the terroists pay rent and living expences in the months just prior to the attacks, according to reports.  Newsweek said Al Bayoumi helped them obtain social security cards and helped them arrange for flying lessons in Florida--indicating dramatic evidence of the state of congressional internal security oversight.

Basnan was convicted of visa fraud and deported to Saudi Arabia on November 17, 2002.  His wife Majida Ibrahim--who had also laundered checks from Riggs Bank--was deported the same day to her native Jordan for visa violations.  (Washington Post, 9-24, 2002)  Reasons were not given why the White House allowed the high profile suspects to leave the country on charges much less important than being implicated as an accessory to mass murder.

All this, at a time when the White House was receiving "frantic" threat warnings about "planes used as weapons" that would "set your hair on fire," according to Commissioner Jamie Gorelick and other panel members.

Gorelick is a partner in Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering--the law firm defending  Prince Mohammed al Faisal against 9-11 families in their $1 trillion suit accusing wealthy Saudis of transferring millions to Islamic charities to finance al Qaeda terrorism in America.  9/11 Commission chief counsel Daniel Marcus is a former member of the firm, adding an additional representative of Wilmer-Cutler's interests regarding the outcome of the panel's investigation.

Friends in high places

Six months before his deportation, Osama Basnan traveled to Houston to meet a prominent Saudi prince involved in intelligence matters at the same time that Crown Prince Abdullah came to visit President George W. Bush at his Crawford, Texas ranch in April, 2002, according to reports.  Questions remain whether Basnan personally associated with Prince Abdullah or the defense minister's host, George W. Bush. 

The 9-11 Commission has publicly declined to address Saudi links to terrorist finance.  Victim family concerns about major panel conflicts of interest and credibility issues notwithstanding, a recent uptick in media reporting and public interest indicates Americans may be wondering whether the White House is hiding something about its Saudi relationships.

Houston's Baker & Botts, the family law firm of Bush 41 Secretary of State James Baker that is defending Saudi Arabia's defense minister, Crown Prince Abdullah, against the 9-11 families regarding the financing of terrorism in America, produced "stacks of affidavits and copies of canceled checks," admitting that for 16 years Abdullah has been funding Islamic charity organizations raided after the attacks by federal agents and anti-terrorism investigators.

On the advice of White House lawyers, President Bush has refused to declassify a 28-page section of a congressional report investigating the September 11 terrorist attacks, citing "national security concerns" and that it would "reveal sensitive intelligence sources and methods."

According to the Los Angeles Times (8-2-2003), sources familiar with Bush's classified section of the document, said it describes "very direct, very specific links" between Saudi officials, two of them San Diego-based [alleged] hijackers and other potential co-conspirators "that cannot be passed off as rogue, isolated or coincidental."  Another official said "It's really damning.  What it says is that not only Saudi entities or nationals are implicated in 9-11, but the [Saudi] government."

Several U.S. officials confirmed that President Bush's classified sections of the report provide detailed additional allegations about Omar Al Bayoumi and Osama Basnan, two Saudi men, and their suspicious activities in the United States, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Importantly, the Commission has not disclosed whether it is hearing private testimony regarding the money laundering machinations linking Washington's Riggs Bank to the hijackers--evidence government sources also say is contained in the 28-pages classified by White House lawyers.

Given the implications of the evidence in its totality, any judicial, legislative or investigative forum in the United States could be hard-pressed to disclose thus far hidden U.S. connections to Saudi-linked terrorism--especially credible evidence of financial facilitation of terrorism within U.S. borders.  Hence the current state of congressional oversight.

That is, unless America's legal or legislative branches wish to strain to the possible breaking point the very constitutional threads binding the country together--even as the executive branch strives mightily to place the protection of national secrecy ahead of securing national security.  Hence the current state of the 9-11 Commission's credibility in the face of sweetheart presidential testimony deals.  

Allan P. Duncan contributed additional research to this report.

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