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Lebanese Jamal Jarrah (R), the uncle of Ziad Samir Jarrah, a suspect in the New York terrorist attacks, talks to a reporter 15 September 2001 in the Bekaa Valley village of Marj in eastern Lebanon. Jarrah denied that his 25-year-old nephew could have been involved in the suicide jetliner attacks in the US. He said if it were true that Ziad was on board of one of the blown up planes, then he would have been an ordinary passenger. 'Ziad was not an Islamist...and he lived with his fiancee,' Jarrah said. |
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File picture taken in February 2001 shows Ziad Samir Jarrah (L), a suspect in the New York terrorist attacks, dancing at a wedding party in Beirut. Ziad's uncle denied 15 Septemebr 2001 that his 25-year-old nephew could have been involved in the suicide jetliner attacks in the US. He said if it were true that Ziad was on board of one of the blown up planes, then he would have been an ordinary passenger. 'Ziad was not an Islamist...and he lived with his fiancee,' Jarrah said. |
BKERKE, Lebanon, Sept 16 (AFP) - The family of a Lebanese man accused by Washington of helping hijack one of the planes involved in the suicide attacks on the United States has conveyed its condolences to the American people, the US ambassador to Lebanon said Sunday. "The family of the suspect called the embassy and expressed their condolences," Ambassador Vincent Battle told journalists at a mass for the victims conducted by the Maronite Christian patriarch, in Bkerke, north of Beirut.
The FBI believes 25-year-old Ziad Samir Jarrah helped hijack and pilot United Airlines Flight 93, the Boeing 757 that left Newark, New Jersey for San Francisco and went down in Stony Creek Township, Pennsylvania. All the FBI's suspects in the hijacked airliner attacks against the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon outside Washington, and the hijacked plane in Newark, are presumed dead.
However, Jarrah's uncle told AFP that the family still considers him "missing" since his death has only been reported by the media. "We haven't had any response from him up till now," Jamal Jarrah told reporters at the family home in the village of Maj in the Bekaa valley, 75 kilometres (45 miles) east of Beirut.
He said Jarrah's parents had asked the Lebanese goverment and Battle to find out what had happened to their son in the United States. "The government promised to help us, while the ambassador said he had no other information than what has appeared in the media," he said. The family insists Jarrah could not have been a hijacker as he was a regular person who was engaged to be married and, despite his Sunni Muslim faith, drank alchol.
Lebanon's security services have confirmed that Jarrah, one of the 19 people accused by the FBI of carrying out the hijackings, had studied flight engineering in Hamburg, north Germany, and was in the US during the attacks.
Meanwhile, the Maronite patriarch, Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir, dedicated his mass in Bkerke to the victims of the September 11 attacks and called for the punishment of the attackers as a "lesson to others." "It is indeed doubtless that a terrorist act such as the one that happened calls for the severest punishments," said Sfeir. "Those who planned, instigated and collaborated, they seem to be many, deserve punishment, as a lesson to others and a deterrent from committing similar acts against humanity," he said.
BEIRUT, Sept 15 (AFP) - One of 19 suspects believed to help carry out terror attacks on the United States, Ziad Samir Jarrah, was a Lebanese national who was in the country this week, Lebanon's security services confirmed Saturday. They also said in a statement that Jarrah had studied aeronautical engineering in Hamburg, north Germany, confirming information provided earlier by Germany's federal prosecutor.
In a phone call from the United States, Jarrah had told his parents that he intended to continue his studies in the country, the statement said, without giving the date of the call. His parents, who live in Marj on the eastern Bekaa plains, had been sending him 1,500 dollars a month, it added.
The government meanwhile warned against jumping to "premature conclusions" about his suspected involvement in the attacks. "With regard to the appearance of Ziad Jarrah's name on the list of suspects, neither the Lebanese government nor its people had anything to do with what happened in the United States," it said in a statement. "Lebanon lost some its most brilliant sons working in the United States in these attacks, either at World Trade Center or passengers aboard the hijacked airplanes." At least four Lebanese were killed or are missing.
Jarrah's uncle denied his nephew was involved in Tuesday's hijacking of four commerical airliners, two of which ploughed into New York's World Trade Center and a third into the Pentagon in Washington. The FBI believes Jarrah helped hijack and pilot a fourth plane, United Airlines Flight 93, a Boeing 757 that left Newark, New Jersey for San Francisco and went down in Stony Creek Township, Pennsylvania. "If it's true he was aboard one of those planes, it must have been as an ordinary passenger, since Ziad was not an Islamist. He goes out and lives like everyone and he was living with his fiancee," Jamal Jarrah told AFP. He added that Jarrah came to Lebanon in February to see his father who had to undergo open-heart surgery.
Another person close to Jarrah earlier told AFP the 25-year-old had "talked with his father by telephone from Florida four hours before the attacks." "Ziad, who lived in Germany for four years, where he studied aeronautical engineering, talked normally during the conversation," said the person, who requested not to be named. "He has not called again since the attacks," they said, adding that Jarrah's father has tried to raise the possibility his son's passport was stolen and used by someone else to board the plane.
Germany's federal prosecutor identified Jarrah Saturday as one of three suspects in the US attacks who had lived in an apartment in Hamburg. It said that he had also lived for a while in Bochum, in western Germany, and that he was aboard the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania on Tuesday. Jarrah had left Germany in June 2000 to attend two different flight schools in Florida in the United States, the prosecutor's office said.
All the FBI suspects are presumed dead.
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