FBI Interviews New Jerseyans

NEWARK, N.J.: The FBI interviewed a Seaside Heights man Sunday who surrendered to police after authorities sought him for questioning in Tuesday`s terrorist attacks. He is one of at least 14 New Jerseyans who have been taken into custody in the investigation of the hijackings that destroyed the World Trade Center. FBI Special Agent Sandra Carroll said no federal charges had been filed against the men yet, but "nobody`s really discounted at this point" in the investigation of the nation`s deadliest terror attack.

Police have also learned of a third hijacker with ties to New Jersey who was living in the country as early as 1988 with a wife and two children.

Agents raided a Jersey City apartment believed to be the home of two men detained in Texas carrying thousands of dollars in cash and box-cutting knives. Ayub Ali Khan, 51, and Mohammed Jaweed Azmath, 47, are talking to federal authorities in New York and have "relevant" information about the plot to crash four planes into landmarks, The New York Post reported Sunday, citing an unidentified source.

Agents on Sunday also were questioning Matt Mehmeti, who had been living in a Seaside Heights motel for the summer selling necklaces on the boardwalk. He turned himself in to New York police after learning that the FBI had searched for him at his room at the now-vacant Thunderbird Motel.

Two men detained at the Tonnelle Avenue apartment in Jersey City Saturday also were being questioned, said Special Agent Sherri Evanini.

The FBI didn`t disclose their names or nationalities. But Sousan Achou, 30, said Sunday that agents still had not returned her husband, Abdusalam, a truck driver for a Paterson bakery, after discovering his visa had expired 20 days ago.

Achou lived next to Azmath`s and Khan`s apartment, which Achou said they shared with a third man, none of whom have been seen since Tuesday`s attacks.

The FBI is familiar with the men`s Jersey City neighborhood, the same where Omar Abdel-Rahman, the blind sheik convicted of plotting the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and of other New York City landmarks, preached.

Three Passaic men who were stopped in Elizabeth on Thursday night carrying more than $11,000 in cash and a one-way plane ticket to Damascus, Syria, also remained in custody, FBI officials said.

The U.S. Embassy in Athens on Sunday said the three were being held on immigration matters unrelated to the terrorist attacks, saying they had appropriated the identities of some Greek citizens. But Carroll said the men could not be discounted in the hijackings.

The FBI has said that two of the 19 hijackers it identified, Nawaq Alhamzi and Salem Alhamzi, had used Fort Lee and Wayne mailbox drop addresses.

A third hijacker, Saeed Alghamdi, rented a two-bedroom condominium for $1,200 a month from 1988 to late 1991 in Florham Park, said James Beck, who owned the apartment in Hearthwood Village.

Alghamdi told Beck he worked for a pharmaceutical company and dressed in a business suit, while his wife wore a traditional Muslim head covering and had two small children, Beck said.

"A friendly type of guy, he`d say hello. Always paid his rent on time," said Beck.

Alghamdi, who lived next door to Beck, said when he left the apartment that he was being transferred to the Midwest, Beck said.

The FBI said Alghamdi, who once had an address in Delray Beach, Fla., and Nawaq and Salem Alhamzi were all aboard United Flight 93, which left Newark, N.J., for San Francisco but crashed in southwestern Pennsylvania an hour later.

Agents also detained five men in a van in East Rutherford hours after Tuesday`s terrorist attacks, and later searched the Weehawken warehouse owned by the van`s owner. INS spokesman Kerry Gill said Sunday he could not confirm or deny whether the men were still in custody

(Copyright 2001 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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Author: 6 - ABC, Action News