WASHINGTON – US prosecutors compiled lots of evidence against the five men accused of having organised the September 11 attacks on the US, but not until this week have details been fully revealed. The indictment charging self-professed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others was unsealed when US Attorney General Eric Holder referred the case to Defence Department for military trials instead of trials at a US federal court in New York.
Holder said Sheikh Mohammed, Walid bin Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali and Mustapha Ahmed al-Hawsawi could have been prosecuted in federal court and blamed Congress for imposing measures blocking civilian trials of Guantanamo Bay inmates. They will be tried in military courts in the US naval base in southeastern Cuba. The now-public details show that the United States, nearly 10 years after hijackers flew planes into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, reconstructed step by step the logistics of the five accused men.
They compiled bank transactions, flight records, visa applications, and dozens of telephone conversations to create the most comprehensive account of the chain of events before the attacks. Implementation of the plan began in 1999, when Sheikh Mohammed (referred to as “KSM” by US officials) proposed to Osama bin Laden to use commercial airliners as missiles against US targets. Until the last minute, according to the indictment, Sheikh Mohammed controlled the entire operation.
“From in or about December 1999, through in or about June 2000, Al-Qaeda selected operatives to pilot the airplanes to be hijacked and dispatched the operatives to the US to obtain flight training and otherwise carry out the plot,” the indictment said. Walid bin Attash, born in Saudi Arabia in 1979, travelled in first-class between Bangkok and Hong Kong, with a knife in his pocket “and approached the cockpit to test security measures.”
He then took several other international flights, each time with his penknife undetected. Meanwhile, Ramzi Binalshibh in Hamburg became friends with future hijacker Mohamed Atta. Binalshibh, a 38-year-old Yemeni, applied four times for a visa to the United States in 2000 but was denied each time. So, at the request of KSM, Binalshibh became and intermediary between KSM and the future hijackers.
At the same time, from Dubai, KSM nephew Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, of Pakistan, provided flight simulation software to the hijackers and began transferring money to US accounts. Between January and June 2000, US investigators pinpointed 35 telephone calls between him and the hijackers. Mustapha Ahmed al-Hawsawi, a 42-year-old from Saudi Arabia, was accused of being the principal financier of the attacks.
Bank transfers were made in small amounts so as not to arouse suspicion and different names were used each time. Tens of thousands of dollars arrived in US accounts, including for Zacarias Moussaoui, who was involved in the plot but was arrested a month before the attacks. In the United Arab Emirates, al-Hawsawi monitored the operations and discusses them with KSM. Between July 9-16, 2001, Ramzi Binalshibh met with Mohamed Atta in Spain.
The two men “discussed, among other aspects of the plot, potential targets for the hijacking attacks.” On July 23, KSM filed a visa application for the United States which was refused. At the end of August, he told bin Laden of the date for the attacks.
