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by BBC News
Sunday, 23 September,
2001, 12:30 GMT 13:30 UK
Waleed Al Shehri left the US a year ago, he says
Another of the men
named by the FBI as a hijacker in the suicide attacks on Washington and
New York has turned up alive and well.
The identities of four
of the 19 suspects accused of having carried out the attacks are now in
doubt.
Saudi Arabian pilot
Waleed Al Shehri was one of five men that the FBI said had deliberately
crashed American Airlines flight 11 into the World Trade Centre on 11
September.
His photograph was
released, and has since appeared in newspapers and on television around
the world.
Hijacking suspects
Flight 175: Marwan Al-Shehhi, Fayez Ahmed, Mohald Alshehri,
Hamza Alghamdi and Ahmed Alghamdi
Flight 11: Waleed M Alshehri, Wail Alshehri, Mohamed Atta,
Abdulaziz Alomari and Satam Al Suqami
Flight 77: Khalid Al-Midhar, Majed Moqed, Nawaq Alhamzi,
Salem Alhamzi and Hani Hanjour
Flight 93: Ahmed Alhaznawi, Ahmed Alnami, Ziad Jarrahi and
Saeed Alghamdi
Now he is protesting
his innocence from Casablanca, Morocco.
He told journalists
there that he had nothing to do with the attacks on New York and
Washington, and had been in Morocco when they happened. He has contacted
both the Saudi and American authorities, according to Saudi press reports.
He acknowledges that
he attended flight training school at Daytona Beach in the United States,
and is indeed the same Waleed Al Shehri to whom the FBI has been
referring.
But, he says, he left
the United States in September last year, became a pilot with Saudi
Arabian airlines and is currently on a further training course in Morocco.
Mistaken identity
Abdulaziz Al Omari,
another of the Flight 11 hijack suspects, has also been quoted in Arab
news reports.
Abdelaziz Al Omari 'lost his passport in Denver'
He says he is an
engineer with Saudi Telecoms, and that he lost his passport while studying
in Denver.
Another man with
exactly the same name surfaced on the pages of the English-language Arab
News.
The second Abdulaziz
Al Omari is a pilot for Saudi Arabian Airlines, the report says.
Meanwhile, Asharq Al
Awsat newspaper, a London-based Arabic daily, says it has interviewed
Saeed Alghamdi.
Khalid Al-Midhar may also be alive
He was listed by the
FBI as a hijacker in the United flight that crashed in Pennsylvania.
And there are
suggestions that another suspect, Khalid Al Midhar, may also be alive.
FBI Director Robert
Mueller acknowledged on Thursday that the identity of several of the
suicide hijackers is in doubt.
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