Pubdate: Thu, 25 Oct 2001
Source: Ft. Worth Star-Telegram (TX)
Copyright: 2001 Star-Telegram, Fort Worth, Texas
Contact:  http://www.star-telegram.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/162
Author:  Jack Douglas Jr., Star-Telegram Staff Writer

PAIR ON TRAIN WERE INITIALLY DRUG SUSPECTS

FORT WORTH - It was Sept. 12, and the country was reeling from the 
terrorist attacks as Mohammed Jaweed Azmath and Ayub Ali Khan sat on a 
train rolling toward Fort Worth.

As the train approached, local police and federal officers assembled at the 
downtown Amtrak station, preparing to question the men as to why they had 
purchased one-way train tickets at the last minute, with cash, in St. Louis.

The officers said in a report that they were looking for drug dealers, not 
for terrorists tied to the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and outside Washington.

They were simply working their beats, searching for travelers booking 
last-minute one-way travel with cash, rather than credit cards, to minimize 
their paper trails.

The way Azmath and Khan pur-chased their train tickets was "consistent with 
that of drug and drug asset couriers," a Fort Worth police report says. 
Officers also thought, incorrectly, that they had found the men's names on 
a computer list of known narcotics dealers.

Officers stepped onto the arriving train at 4:30 p.m. with no idea that 
rather than drug dealers, they would catch two men - Azmath and Khan - who 
remain jailed in New York as material witnesses in the largest criminal 
investigation in U.S. history.

Of the hundreds of people detained since Sept. 11, Azmath and Khan are 
among the few who authorities suspect may have inside knowledge about the 
attacks.

A police report obtained by the Star-Telegram states Azmath was "extremely 
nervous," and Khan's "hands were visibly trembling and his breathing was 
rapid" when officers approached them on the train.

"I did not have anything to do with New York," police quoted Azmath as 
saying after he was told that they only wanted to question him about his 
travel plans.

Knowledgeable law enforcement sources said Khan and Azmath were carrying 
stringed pouches, meant to hang around their necks, that contained passages 
from either the Muslim holy book, the Quran, or some other type of "Islamic 
prayer of repentance."

The report says officers also found a "prayer rug and other religious 
paraphernalia."

At the time of their arrests, Azmath and Khan had their hair cut short, 
were cleanshaven and, according to sources, had shaved the rest of their 
bodies.

Area Muslim leaders said religious items are often carried by members of 
their faith to ward off evil. They said they were puzzled, however, by the 
shaved bodies.

"Very strange," said Basheer Ahmed, chairman of the Muslim Community Center 
for Human Services in Bedford.

Sources said Azmath and Khan may have been preparing for death. The 
authorities cited notes left behind by some of the terrorists that included 
what appeared to be instructions on what they were to do before their 
suicide missions.

Those notes, which have been released by the Justice Department, included a 
portion that carried this instruction: "The previous night, shave the extra 
hair from the body [and] pray."

The details surrounding Azmath and Khan have gained national attention, 
including a report by The Wall Street Journal that old magazines were found 
in their modest apartment in Jersey City with cover stories about 
biological weapons and poison gas. According to The New York Times, 
documents from the apartment are being tested by the FBI for signs of anthrax.

Additionally, The Washington Post has quoted senior FBI officials as saying 
that Khan and Azmath are among the few detainees who have been offered 
leniency in exchange for information about international terror suspect 
Osama bin Laden or his operation. With Khan and Azmath refusing to 
cooperate, authorities are considering whether to send them to another 
country where they might be tortured, the Post reported.

Through interviews with law enforcement sources and a Fort Worth police 
report that details the events of that day, the Star-Telegram has pieced 
together details of the surprising arrests of Khan and Azmath and the trail 
that led to them.

Azmath's "pulse in his neck was visibly pulsating rapidly and [he] broke 
out into a sweat above his brow" when confronted by the officers, says the 
report, which also recommends commendations for local officers.

It says Azmath told officers that he and Khan were going to San Antonio to 
visit a friend and planned to stay "at least one month."

When questioned separately by the officers, the report says, Khan "was very 
nervous and evasive ... about his travel plans" and refused to say who he 
planned to visit in San Antonio, and that he expected to stay only a week.

Khan voluntarily opened his briefcase, where police found two "box-cutter 
type knives," $2,400 in cash, an open package of hair dye and "new 
clothing, still in plastic wrapping," the report says.

It said Azmath was carrying $3,188 in cash and a small pocketknife.

A search of the men's luggage revealed "receipts for money wires to the 
subjects and numerous empty cash envelopes, with dates hand written on 
them," the report says. There was also "paraphernalia that could assist in 
the altering of the appearance of the subjects" and "numerous passport 
photos of Azmath."

The Justice Department has issued no official statement about the status of 
Azmath and Khan, except to say that they remain in custody in New York 
charged with minor immigration violations, including carrying bogus passports.

"I have no new information on these two individuals," was all Justice 
Department spokeswoman Susan Dryden would offer as comment in Washington.

Law enforcement authorities say Azmath and Khan were passengers on TWA 
Flight 679, which took off from Newark, N.J., on the morning of Sept. 11.

About the same time, hijackers were commandeering other planes in the sky, 
including one that had departed from Newark.

The eventual destination for TWA 679 was San Antonio, with a scheduled stop 
in St. Louis. While in St. Louis, the plane was grounded, as was every 
other flight in the country.

An official involved in the investigation in St. Louis said authorities 
have studied whether Azmath and Khan had planned to hijack Flight 679, but 
then changed their plans when all of their accomplices did not arrive.

But the official, who did not want to be identified, acknowledged that it 
was little more than a police theory.

"We'll never know for sure unless they confess," the official said.

Azmath and Khan may have had companions who went in different directions 
when their flight was grounded, according to sources with law enforcement 
and the airline industry.

FBI agents have searched for some of the passengers on that TWA plane who 
did not appear on Sept. 13 for the rescheduled flight. One man was taken 
into custody in St. Louis when he attempted to purchase an airplane ticket, 
using a credit card belonging to either Azmath or Khan. The identity of 
that man, and what the government has done with him, was not immediately known.

Julia Bishop-Cross, a TWA spokeswoman in St. Louis, said the airline would 
not discuss the flight taken by Azmath and Khan.

With their flight grounded, Azmath and Khan bought train tickets in St. 
Louis at the last moment on Sept. 12, using cash for a one-way boarding 
pass and leaving blank a space on a form that asked for their phone 
numbers. That aroused the suspicions of officers in Fort Worth, who were 
monitoring ticket sales in St. Louis as part of a routine search for drug 
dealers.

Later, Azmath and Khan told officers that the box cutters in the briefcase 
were used to open boxes at a newsstand they operated in New York City's 
Penn Station.

They also told authorities that their jobs paid them each about $300 a 
week, a small wage considering the large amounts of money found in their 
bank accounts, several sources said.

They said Azmath and Khan each have failed polygraph tests. But several FBI 
agents have said that many of the people who have been detained have failed 
such tests, suggesting a problem in the way questions have been asked or, 
possibly, representing a mistrust of American law enforcement.

FBI agents have traveled to Hyderabad, India, the hometown of Azmath and 
Khan, where they have questioned the men's relatives.

Azmath's uncle, Mohammed Jahingir, said agents told him "not to worry, that 
he would call us, [and] that he would be released."

But for the family, the frustration grows as time passes, Jahingir said.

"He hasn't called us," he said. "There has been no communication telling us 
how he is. When will they come home?"

Staff writer Ginger Richardson and researcher Jan Fennell contributed to 
this report.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom