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Czechs Say Atta Met With Iraqi Official in Prague
On October
27, 2001 John Tagliabue and Patrick E. Tyler reported
in the New York Times.
"The interior
minister of the Czech Republic said Friday that an Iraqi
intelligence officer met with Mohamed Atta, one of the
ringleaders of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the
United States, four months before the synchronized hijackings
and mass killings were carried out." "Federal law-enforcement
officials say the Prague meeting fits into Atta's itinerary
this way: On April 4 he was in Virginia Beach. He flew
to the Czech Republic on April 8 and met with the Iraqi
intelligence officer, who was identified as Ahmed Khalil
Ibrahim Samir al-Ani. By April 11, Atta was back in
Florida renting a car." The meeting was confirmed not
only by Stanislav Gross, the Minister of Interior of
the Czech Republic, but, Czech Prime Minister Milos
Zeman, the chief of the Czech counterintelligence service
Jiri Ruzek and Czech UN Ambassador Hynek Kmonicek, who
as the deputy foreign minister had ordered al-Ani's
expulsion from the Czech Republic.
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