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~aw Enforcement Pri vacy

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""M~~ORANDUM FOR THE RECORD

EventiInterview of FBI special·A·gentl ..... __ .....

Type of eventiInterview
\. \. \\ \\
\ \\ ',Dates: November 18>2~03

\. \ \\ S,pecial Access Issues: Access Limited to Dieter Snell, Raj De (source disclosure)

\ \ \\,p;~pared by: Raj De .

\ \ ·\eam,Number: IA
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\, \ L'\catiO,\: FBI, San Diego Field Office -,

\, 'pa*:ticlp~~ts - Non-Commission: FBI Supervisory Special Agent Rick Kelly

\ \,·Pard.~ipant~, - Commission: DieterSnell, Raj De

:: ;'1 "\, Ihas been in the FBI San Diego Field Office fo;'8·y~ars. He spent 3 of

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those 8 years in.the EI Centro RA office. Prior to September 11, 200I'j Forked on
d~g jnvestigati()~s. Since 9/11, he has been assigned to an IT squad .

, \ After 9/11'] l-vorked on the team assigned to investigate Hashim al-Attas.

\. The Attas investigation initially arose under Penttbom. Attas came to the attention of the
\01" cause he signed over the lease to his apartment in San Diego to Khalid al-Midhar.
\ could not recall exactly how this apartment had come to the attention of the FBI,
ut upon further questioning he remembered that the initial lead had to do with George
Harbi the manager of the apartment.

r---lecalled that Attas signed over the; IIOllse10 the apartment to Midhar on
Febru~OOO. Attas told a work associate! khat he had to do something
that day at lunch. He and Dicked up Midhar and Nawafal-Hazmi and took them to
meet Harb. When they arrived to meet Harb, one of the two hijackers went inside while
the other remained outside.1 INas the emergency contact on the new lease. Attas was
not happy about having to take Hazmi and lvftdhar to the apartment. In an interview with
the FBI, his girlfriend said that Ari:as may have been doing a favor for an associate of his
named Khalid LNU. ' , !

Attas had connections in th~ Islamic community. According to his girlfriend, he

did not like Omar al-Bayoumi because he :suspected that he might be a Saudi intelligence
officer. Bayoumi came to Attas' apartme,nt on occasion under the guise of seeking help
with his computer, but Attas believed that he was stopping by to check on him .

• V seeke.

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apartment. One time, the girlfriend was let into that apartment by the manager and took
thefan and VCR. The hijackers subsequently came to her apartment to complain. As a
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"""::-...result-they called Attas in Saudi Arabia to have him divide the items left in the apartment
\\" -: <::\ among fhem, When they later moved out of the apartment, the hijackers packed up some
\\ \:':\:gfthe iteni1>,~hatAtlas left for them to use,

\ \. \.\..\. \.:..... The girlfriend has positively identified Hazmi as one of the two individuals who
\ "\ ""'"
""'"··'l.i~ in the apartment,

\\ \\\\ "\ \<:'\ Atlas had co~tact with Bayoumi every couple of weeks, but not very frequently,
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'....\\ ~~~ unaware of any increase in the phone contacts between Bayoumi and Attas in
\ \. VeTari~~ry/early February 2000 .

..\ \\ \\ '\1 \,:,':\, ~id not know :hQ,Khalid LNU was, and he was unaware whether the FBI
\. \ever'~ete~,~~d who he was. "'" '

\\ \\ \~s not familiar with ~he"incident in which Harb, the apartment manager,
\ received a page ..from Bayoumi's phonenumber in early February 2000 and spoke with

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\I-lazmi when he 'retumed the call. \,

'; \\ Accordingtcr:::Jthere is no eVid:~~ to suggest that Atlas is an extremist. He

believed that somebody must have played on the·{~ttas should be a good Muslim
and allow Hazmi andMidhar to use his apartment:L...J.Iid not think there is anything
ne'~arl,,~usabout Attas.\,~ttas seemed to like America.

~\ "I !was not sure, but he believed that it had been determined that the Hashim
al-Attas who was scheduled to take a cross-country flight on September 11, 2001 was not
the same individual who signed over the lease to his apartment to Hazmi and Midhar, He
was 5fJ% sure that this was the case.

btate~ that a lea~"o/as sent to Riyadh to interview Atlas but he did not think
he was ever interviewed. \""",.

Turning to Iyad Khreiwesh:Jl.ecalled that he came onto the radar as a result

of his association with Osama Mus~ owner of the Texaco gas station in San Diego
where Hazmi briefly worked in the spring of2000. Mustafa is an American by birth and
served in the Marine Co s. He has Palestinian relatives and is uite active in his su ort
of the Palestinian cause.
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\,\. '. \. ··:-:.: ..·.\~··...Whenasked about reportingthatKhreiwesh had been warning-employees at the
\\\Te~~~~as statioii.ill,~ugust 2001 that theFB.I~o~hl W.11l1l~illerUt them soon;rI
".'" ... bel.lev~:t~~t..~hrelwesh::~ay tc!
have been referring I, an INS ag~o
......hadhadeontact.with Khiej:wes~om Khreiwesh constantly referred to as an FBI
.......
ageni:....WJi~.j)r~ss~d, howev~r;L..Jfurther stated that the reporting to which he was
referring concerned PQst-9/11 statements by Khreiwesh and thus could not have been the
sa~e asan< rejjii~~~&:~ha~.conceme(fSta.~~ments made in August 2001.

\\. According ·;~f:::·:>:':·::ithe.Texaco s~~i~i'iY.(1iSa social gathering place for Middle

Eastern males. ···tIe believedthereis no doubt that .Khr . as tied to extremist groups
:. ". through. his associates at ili~.TeXaco:._ ..At the very leas-t' tated, Khreiwesh knows
\, \. who referred Hazmi to him:' .... "':-. s waitin a r val I headquarters in order to
\ \..~nterview\~hreiwesh ...... ......_ ....._ ..... ..

\ \ Wi~&respect to tl;~.reportin~'n:g1;iJinf'~ alltged meeting on the morning of

\S¢ptember 1(}~ ..2001 at the T~xaco gas st~~i~n oted that ~e i~ not willing to put a
~ot.of stock such an unconfirmed report at his time, Such reporting IS hard borate,
ar4 !was rl9t totally confident in the sourceof the information . - he
w~s young at the tjrne and didn 't.really know Khrelwesh, Althoug e cou n t quite
pu~ his finger o~it·'· or some-reason was not -.sure -.~hether.t.oibelieve the re;rting.
• Thi.s reporting been provided sometime after J~>, 2002!i _ Ihad
fi~s~.approached ~ connectio? ~vestig~~ori'~f th~ pent~b~m mill~fal
witnesses who worked at the gas statlon.LJubsequen~ly worked WIt as a
source on another matter. -. -. i. ./
\, !stated that no p~'otOS were shown tor-lto ~~~.J]i~··alempt to identify
the two unknown individuals at 't~e alleged Septe~ meet~ng:'1 'J~id not think
that the FBI had a~leads at to who those two individuals might have beeri:1 ~as
amenable to havin ook at photographs provided! by the Commission in order to
attempt to identify t e two unknown Individuals at the September 1..0meeting .

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