New developments raise troubling questions about "Pied Piper" of terrorist pilots.
Mohamed Atta had connections with the Saudi Royal Family, according to his flight instructor at Huffman Aviation in Venice Florida, who told another student pilot Atta's status as a member of the Saudi elite warranted him having a full-time bodyguard at all times during his U.S. flight training.
The bombshell revelation, buried in news reports immediately after 9/11, re-surfaced recently in an Australian television documentary interview with Anne Greaves, a London osteopath whose passion for aviation led her to take flight training at Huffman Aviation at the same time as Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi.
From Hamburg Germany to Venice Florida…
More on Greave's startling testimony in a moment. But there were also several other developments challenging what we've been told about Mohamed Atta's true identity.
Suspicion is growing in Hamburg, Germany that Atta maintained ties with Western intelligence agencies while in Technical School, says one former German intelligence official, pointing to Atta's participation in an elite program sponsored by the German equivalent of the Agency for International Development, an arm of the government which often harbors intelligence operatives in the U.S.
Even the Hamburg electronics company which employed three members of the core cadre—Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, and Ramzi Binalshibh—for more than two years while they were students is beginning to appear to be not quite what it seemed at first glance.
Hay Computing Service GmbH is suspected of being what is known in German as a "briefkastenfirma," literally a "mailbox firm," commonly referred to in the U.S. as a "dummy front company."
A cover story begins to break down
New evidence also calls into question the chronology of Mohamed Atta’s final days. The MadCowMorningNews has learned exclusively that an eyewitness who has never been contacted by the FBI spotted Atta, Marwan and Siad Al-Jarrah together in Venice barely a week before the terrorist attack, long after authorities say they had moved on from this tiny retirement community on Florida’s Gulf Coast.
All three terrorist pilots ordered subs from her in the deli at the local Publix supermarket, states Brenda Covey. She had served them all before on numerous occasions, she continued, a statement confirmed by news accounts, and so she has no doubt at all about who the three were.
What were they doing-or who were they meeting with–in tiny Venice Florida? At the very least this raises more suspicion about why the FBI has insisted Atta's terrorist cadre's arrival enmasse in Venice was nothing but sheer happenstance.
Eyewitness testimony doesn't make the papers–again.
Englishwoman Anne Greaves met Mohamed Atta while pursuing her lifelong dream of learning to fly. As fate would have it she ended up taking flying lessons with Mohamed Atta at Huffman Aviation in Venice Florida.
"I certainly found it strange to find two Arabs in such a quiet location," she told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.’s investigative program 4Corners.
"When I checked with my instructor on one occasion about their (strange) habits, I was informed that the men we now know as Mohamed Atta and al-Shehhi actually had royal connections with a Saudi House and al-Shehhi was his bodyguard."
Correspondent Liz Jackson attempted to pin down details of Greaves’ stunning allegation…
"This story about Mohamed Atta being royalty and al-Shehhi being his bodyguard, was that something just that Huffman's told you? I mean do you think that was something that they even believed or…"
"It was my impression that it was generally believed," Greaves states. "Because it was my instructor who told me this at the time so I had the impression that that was generally believed, yes.
"That Mohamed Atta was royalty?"
"That he had some connection of the Royal House of Saudi, yes."
"And al-Shehhi was his bodyguard?"
"That is what I was given to understand so in a way it made sense to me that there were always two because I never saw al-Shehhi take the controls of the aircraft. It was always Mohamed Atta but nevertheless al-Shehhi always accompanied him on his flying lessons."
"A soft-shoe shuffle at 30000 feet."
Was Mohamed Atta a student pilot with a bodyguard who flew along with him during flight training? This is not a detail that would have been missed by the flight school's owner, who was queried about it on-camera.
Dekkers was asked, "Now there have been stories that he presented himself as an Arab prince, is that correct?"
"Well, no," Dekkers replied. "If he was a prince, yes or no, I can't state that because we never heard them talking about that, we never heard anything, we have heard that one of my students who was here in the same time that Atta and al-Shehhi was here, and I think it was Miss Greaves, that she stated in the London newspaper that he was a prince, that their clothing was expensive and that al-Shehhi was his guard."
"Nothing of that we have seen here in the five months they were here," continued Dekkers in broken English. "They were absolutely low profile, they clothed themselves like we all do, jeans and sneakers, there was nothing else."
Someone is lying.. Atta either did or did not take his bodyguard up with him on training flights. And since there is indisputable evidence that eyewitnesses in numerous interviews mentioned Mohamed Atta's fussy-by-Florida-standards dress code, it is Anne Greaves who appears to be telling the truth.
Where does that leave Rudi Dekkers?
If Rudi Dekkers lied in an improvised on camera attempt to discredit Anne Greaves' account it raises red flags about whether he was telling the truth during his innumerable television appearances in the wake of the disaster.
And it raises the question of what he might be trying to hide.
"High test or regular?"
Evidence suggesting that Dekkers is an inveterate liar surfaced last week in the local Venice Gondolier, which caught him telling an obvious whopper.
In a front page story about heightened security concerns at the Venice Airport the paper reported that five aviation fuel trucks belonging to Dekkers had been discovered parked at the Venice Airport with keys in their ignitions, unlocked, unattended, and loaded with over 6000 gallons of highly flammable aviation fuel.
Already burdened with a bad case of nerves over their Airport’s involvement in 9/11, city officials were not amused.
Defensively, Dekkers told reporters that leaving the keys in the ignition had not been standard procedure, but just a mistake.
"That is not normal," he said.
A Huffman employee, however, had already gone on record with the police stating "that's the way they always leave them."
A newspaper editorial then suggested, for the first time, that it might be time for Rudi to go.
"If he won’t be more helpful, the city should re-examine whether it wants Dekkers’ business to remain at the airport," said the Gondolier editorial.
In truth, slipping quietly out of town may be exactly the outcome the Dutch national is desperately seeking. When your cover is blown you've outlived your usefulness.
No one enjoys being left hanging, twisting slowly, slowly, in the wind.
"What are they hiding down in Venice Florida?"
Today Dekkers’ presence at the Venice Airport is a continual reminder that the FBI has unfinished business in its investigation into the global network which aided the terrorists. Their work was halted, despite vocal protests by FBI agents on the case, by Pres. George W. Bush, in what he said was an effort to free more manpower for the anthrax investigation.
But after the disclosure last week that Vice Pres. Dick Cheney "strongly" urged Senate Majority leader Tom Daschle to rein in the scope of the upcoming Hearings, Bush's halting of the FBI investigation can be seen in a somewhat different light.
Down in tiny Venice Florida, the biggest 9/11 crime scene that wasn't reduced to rubble, a knowledgeable airport observer pointed out to us something he found curious.
Since September 11 general aviation has been in serious downturn, he told us. At the Venice Airport its been, understandably, even worse.
"Remember the stories about how Rudi Dekkers had so much trouble coming up with his rent at the Airport?" (Flight School Owner has Shady Ties).
Dekkers had been late paying his rent last February, March, April, May, June and July.
"Rudi Dekkers isn't having trouble paying his rent anymore," stated this observer, in a slow soft voice that sounded more than a little in awe of the implications of the statement.
This is all no doubt just sheer coincidence.
NEXT: Character is still destiny: "The Rudi Dekkers No One Knows."
