The family of Lebanese Ziad Jarrah denied on Sunday FBI claims that their son was a “ruthless and cunning Islamic extremist who hijacked an airliner with the intention of crashing it into a prominent American landmark," reported the Daily Star.
Jarrah was placed on a list of 19 people suspected of carrying out the world’s worst terrorist attacks on US soil Tuesday.
The suspects family said the 27-year old Lebanese engineering student was a carefree young man who drank alcohol, lived with his girlfriend and never showed any interest in religion or politics.
The FBI believes Jarrah helped hijack United Airlines Flight 93, a Boeing 757 that left Newark, New Jersey, for San Francisco but crashed into a field in Pennsylvania, killing all on board.
However, Jarrah’s grieving family said it was impossible for Ziad to have been the merciless terrorist alleged by the FBI.
“He was a calm, settled person, in love with his girlfriend, who enjoyed parties. He was very eager to return to Lebanon, get married and find a job here,” said Jamal Jarrah, Ziad’s uncle.
“He never joined any political party. He even drank alcohol. He couldn’t have been affected (by religious extremism) in such a short period of time.”
Tearful friends and relatives gathered Sunday at the Jarrah home in Marj, talking into mobile phones to gather the latest information.
According to the paper, Ziad Jarrah’s background in the dusty, sprawling village of Marj in the Western Bekaa offers little evidence to suggest that he was an Islamic extremist in the making.
Jarrah came from a wealthy, middle-class family living in a large house in Marj. He attended Hikmeh, a prominent Christian school in Beirut. He left Lebanon four years ago to study flight engineering in Hamburg, his family said.
Jamal Jarrah, a bank manager, said his nephew began travelling frequently to the United States a year ago, having enrolled in a flying course in Miami.
“He stayed with an American family. They liked him very much and said Ziad was very polite. They were shocked at the news,” Jarrah said.
Ziad was planning to return to Lebanon in a year’s time at the end of his four-year course in Germany to marry his girlfriend and find a job.
He added that the family last heard from Ziad two days before the attacks in New York and Washington, when he confirmed that he had received $2,000 sent by his father.
“He was in very good spirits and was making jokes on the phone,” Jarrah said.
The German authorities said Saturday they had found “airplane-related documents” in the home of Ziad Jarrah’s girlfriend in the town of Bochum.
German Federal Prosecutor Kay Nehm said that Ziad Jarrah often visited Bochum, although he lived and studied in Hamburg, home also to two other suspects both of whom were born in the United Arab Emirates.
Ziad’s German-born Turkish girlfriend has claimed that Jarrah had visited Afghanistan, the refuge of Osama bin Laden, the Saudi dissident who is the chief suspect behind the attacks in the United States. But the claim was denied by the family, said the paper.
“We would have known if he had gone there. He was always in touch with the family,” said Jamal Jarrah.
The German authorities have been unable to find a link between Ziad Jarrah and bin Laden, adding some credence, perhaps, to the family’s denial – Albawaba.com
