Agents Arrest Man, 27, in Baltimore
by Dan Eggen, The Washington Post
Federal authorities yesterday arrested a Jordanian man who is believed to have lived with two of the Sept. 11 hijackers last summer at an apartment in Northern Virginia, officials said.
Rasmi al Shannaq, 27, was apprehended by agents from the FBI, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the State Department at a house in Baltimore and charged with overstaying his visa, authorities said. Al Shannaq was required to leave the United States by January 2001, officials said.
Federal authorities stressed yesterday that they have no direct evidence linking al Shannaq with the Sept. 11 plot. “He appears to be one of these unwitting accomplice types,” one law enforcement official said.
But two officials said they are concerned about al Shannaq’s connection to hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi and Hani Hanjour, with whom he shared an apartment for about two months last summer.
Alhazmi and Hanjour were part of the terrorist team that slammed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon, authorities have said.
Officials said that, at the very least, al Shannaq could provide important details about the activities of Alhazmi and Hanjour before the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
“He may not be entirely on the up-and-up, but we don’t have any solid answers yet,” one U.S. official said.
The arrest of al Shannaq, first reported yesterday by ABC News, came a month after the deportation of another Jordanian immigrant, Eyad Alrababah, with connections to the same two hijackers.
Alrababah went to the FBI last September after recognizing Alhazmi’s photograph, saying he had helped steer Alhazmi and Hanjour to an apartment in Northern Virginia and accompanied them in May 2001 on a trip to Connecticut.
Alrababah was first held as a material witness and questioned repeatedly. He later admitted to helping at least 17 immigrants fraudulently obtain Virginia driver’s licenses and was ordered deported in May.