[Mb-civic] Flight Instructor Recalls Unease With Moussaoui - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Flight Instructor Recalls Unease With Moussaoui
Warnings About Suspect to School's Supervisor Were Ignored, Pilot Testifies

By Timothy Dwyer and Jerry Markon
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, March 10, 2006; A02

Zacarias Moussaoui's plan to learn to fly a Boeing 747 began to unravel 
the day he met Clarence Prevost, a retired Northwest Airlines and Navy 
pilot who once flew hurricane hunters.

Prevost, 68, took the stand yesterday in U.S. District Court in 
Alexandria and described how he quickly became suspicious of Moussaoui 
after he began one-on-one classroom instruction in August 2001.

He testified that at the end of the first day of classes, he urged the 
flight executives at the Minnesota school to request an FBI background 
check on Moussaoui because he was from the Middle East, had paid his 
$6,800 tuition with $100 bills and, unlike every other student at the 
school, he wasn't a pilot.

This is the response he got from his boss, he testified: "He paid his 
money. We don't care." Prevost said he told the executive, "We'll care 
when he hijacks an airplane, and he's throwing all the switches and then 
there are all these lawsuits."

The next day, Aug. 14, 2001, after Prevost kept pushing, school 
officials called the FBI. The following day, Moussaoui was arrested by 
immigration officials and held on charges that his 90-day visa had expired.

The testimony came on the fourth day of the trial that will determine 
whether Moussaoui is put to death for his role in the plot that led to 
the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. An admitted al-Qaeda operative, Moussaoui, 
37, pleaded guilty in April to conspiring with al-Qaeda in the worst 
terrorist attack in American history. He has said that Osama bin Laden 
instructed him to fly an airplane into the White House at another time.

Prosecutors argue that Moussaoui should be executed because he lied to 
investigators when he was arrested in Minnesota -- and that Sept. 11 
could have been prevented if he revealed all he knew. Defense attorneys 
say that Moussaoui had no specific knowledge of Sept. 11 and that the 
government would not have stopped the attacks even if he had confessed. 
At the time of his arrest, according to Prevost and another flight 
instructor, Moussaoui had very poor piloting skills.

"He was not a very good pilot, not the best student," testified Shohaib 
Kassam, his primary flight instructor in Oklahoma, where Moussaoui 
trained previously. He said that despite 56 hours of flight training in 
a Cessna, the al-Qaeda member could not fly the plane straight and level 
or make turns, could not descend and was unable to fly solo.

After being grounded at Airman Flight School in Norman, Okla., he moved 
on to Pan Am International Flight Academy in Eagan, Minn., where he was 
assigned to Prevost.

Prevost recalled that at one point on that first day, he asked Moussaoui 
if he were a Muslim, and Moussaoui shouted, "I am nothing!" Prevost said 
that alarmed him. "Right then," he testified, "I wanted to get out of 
that classroom . . . and I said we shouldn't be doing this."

FBI agent Harry Samit testified that Moussaoui was obsessed with his 
flight training, even after he was arrested. While he was being taken to 
jail the first night he was in custody, Samit said Moussaoui asked if he 
could be released for just enough time to finish his training and then 
he would turn himself back in.

Samit is one of the agents who questioned Moussaoui. He said Moussaoui 
gave vague answers when asked about his source of income.

"It seemed strange that he couldn't remember how much his salary was, 
the company he worked for or the family members who he received money 
from," Samit said.

In response to questions from Assistant U.S. Attorney David J. Novak, 
Samit said that if Moussaoui had told him that he was a member of 
al-Qaeda, he would have "rang alarm bells."

Samit said he was unable to get approval for a search warrant for 
Moussaoui's bags that were seized when he was arrested. Finally, a plan 
was worked out to deport Moussaoui back to his home country, France, 
because officials there had agreed to search his bags upon arrival. 
Approval for that plan came late in the afternoon on Sept. 10, 2001.

Testimony will resume Monday.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/09/AR2006030901143.html?nav=hcmodule
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