Charge filed for alleged aid in attack

Herald news services

WASHINGTON — Federal authorities have charged the first person with aiding the terrorist hijackers, according to court documents released Monday. The number of people arrested or detained in the wide-ranging investigation grew to 352.

Herbert Villalobos was charged in federal court in suburban Virginia with aiding one of the suspected hijackers to fraudulently obtain a Virginia identification card a month before the Sept. 11 attacks.

A second man who aided with the false identification is cooperating and was not charged, prosecutors said. The court records disclosed as many as five of the hijackers got Virginia cards in the month before the attacks.

Meanwhile, the terrorism investigation proceeded on several fronts.

Attorney General John Ashcroft disclosed that 352 people have been arrested or detained in the investigation and an additional 392 people were being sought for questioning about the attacks in New York and Washington, D.C.

"We think they have information that could be helpful to the investigation," the attorney general told lawmakers.

The Federal Aviation Administration grounded agricultural crop dusters another day for fear they could be used in biological or chemical attacks — a ban that was lifted at midnight — and also considered asking airports and airlines to take new precautions with their own workers.

The FAA said it was considering requiring that the workers’ identifications be verified, followed by new checks of employment histories and possible criminal backgrounds.

The order on background checks would affect tens of thousands of airport workers who have access to secure locations in airports, people such as baggage handlers, food service workers and mechanics.

Initially, FAA officials said the order had been given. But late Monday, the agency said it was still considering the idea and hadn’t formally acted. The agency has asked airports and airlines to make sure that identification badges used by employees with secure access are valid.

In Florida, court records in Broward County showed one of the 19 hijack suspects was wanted on an arrest warrant at the time of the attacks.

A bench warrant was issued June 4 for Mohamed Atta for failing to appear in court on a charge of driving without a license. Atta’s Florida driver’s license was revoked on Aug. 23.

In Virginia, an FBI affidavit filed in federal court alleged that as many as five hijackers — Hani Hanjour, Salem Al-Hamzi, Majed Moqed, Ahmed Saleh Alghamdi and Abdulaziz Alomari — went to the Department of Motor Vehicles in Arlington, Va., on Aug. 2.

All five were at the office that day to "conduct transactions relating to Virginia identification cards," the affidavit said.

The affidavit alleges that Villalobos and a second man — his identity not revealed because he is a witness — signed identity papers for the hijackers.

The affidavit said Villalobos, using the alias Oscar Diaz, signed papers certifying that Alomari lived in Virginia. Alomari has been identified as a hijacker of a Boston flight that crashed into the World Trade Center.

The second man, the witness, signed a residency certification and an identity affidavit that was used by Alghamdi to obtain an identification card, the affidavit said.

Alghamdi has been identified as a hijacker of the second plane that struck the Trade Center.

In Michigan, the president of a truck driving school confirmed two men arrested last week had attended the school and one of them obtained a permit to transport hazardous materials.

Karim Koubriti, 23, and Ahmed Hannan, 33, arrested Sept. 17, attended the U.S. Truck Driver Training School in Detroit this summer, said the school’s president, Joseph LaBarge. Koubriti passed the state commercial drivers license exam on Aug. 22 and received a permit to transport hazardous materials. Hannan failed the road test, LaBarge said.

As for the crop dusters, Ashcroft told the House Judiciary Committee the FBI had gathered information raising fears the small farm planes could be used in a biological or chemical attack. "There is no clear indication of the time or place of these attacks," he said.

Ashcroft said that Atta, one of the hijackers, had shown interest in crop dusters and that another person now in federal custody had downloaded computer information about the planes.

J.D. "Will" Lee, 62, general manager of South Florida Crop Care in Belle Glade, said Monday that groups of two or three Middle Eastern men came by almost every weekend for six or eight weeks before the terrorist attacks, including the weekend just before the assaults.

Lee said a co-worker, James Lester, positively identified one as Atta.

In other developments:

The Bush administration is debating how much secret intelligence, such as electronic intercepts and reports from agents, it should release in an effort to prove that Saudi extremist Osama bin Laden was responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, administration officials said Monday.

One senior official directly involved in the debate called it a "classic" collision between the need to make a compelling case to the world and the need to protect intelligence sources and methods.

The Taliban has threatened to execute any U.N. worker who uses computers and communications equipment in Afghanistan, forcing a near halt to the remaining relief work in the country, U.N. officials said Monday.

The militia raided U.N. offices in Kabul, the capital, and Kandahar, where the Taliban leadership is based, during the weekend and sealed their satellite telephones, walkie-talkies, computers and vehicles to bar them from use, according to U.N. spokeswoman Stephanie Bunker.

President Bush ordered a freeze Monday on the assets of 27 people and organizations with suspected links to terrorism, including Islamic militant Osama bin Laden, and urged other nations to do likewise. Foreign banks that don’t cooperate could have their own transactions blocked in the United States.

The Coast Guard is requiring that incoming vessels supply local port officials with the identities of crew members and passengers. "We want to identify individuals and cargos that should not get into the United States," Capt. Mike Lapinski said.

Appeals by Hollywood actors and musicians during an unprecedented telethon last week generated more than $150 million in pledges to benefit families of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attack victims.

A San Diego Zoo security guard told the FBI she recalled finding a metal case at the zoo several weeks ago that may have belonged to suspected hijacker Hanjour, zoo spokeswoman Christine Simmons said. The case, which contained identification, some other papers and possibly cash, was claimed from the zoo’s lost and found. The zoo kept no record of who claimed it, Simmons said.