U.S. authorities are investigating whether HIsham Mohammad Hadayet, the Egyptian who gunned down two Israelis at Los Angeles International Airport last Thursday, met in the United States with Osama bin Laden's deputy, an Arabic daily reported Saturday.
The London-based Al-Hayat said that authorities were checking whether Hadayet had met with Ayman Al-Zawahiri in 1995 and again in 1998, while the latter was head of the Islamic Jihad group in Egypt. Al-Zawahiri, who visited California in 1998, went on to become bin Laden's right-hand man.
A senior Israeli official close to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said there was "no doubt" the shooting was a "terrorist" act targeting El Al. According to AFP, the official added there was probably no link to the Palestinian conflict but noted the incident bore the hallmarks of an action by al-Qaeda.
It should be noted that the U.S. government had started deportation proceedings in 1996 against Hadayet but he gained U.S. residency the following year when his wife received a valid visa, officials said Saturday.
Hadayet had no police record, said FBI special agent Richard Garcia. However, police in Irvine, California, where he had lived for six years, had received calls about domestic disturbances. "We received information from (the) police department that they have had calls in at that area for domestic disturbances, whether or not family issue or just neighborly issues ... It could be basically loud stereo, too," Garcia said.
Meanwhile, neighbors said Hadayet was an angry man and his anger was aimed at Americans and Israelis. "He had a lot of anger at Americans. He said there were a lot of crazy people in America. He had a lot of anger," neighbor Emma La Mer told journalists.
Money problems
The family of the attacker said Saturday they believed he was motivated by financial problems with the Israeli airline, and not by politics or terrorism.
"Egyptian security services on Friday told the father of Hisham Mohammed Hadayet the incident was due to financial problems with El Al," one of his cousins, Emad al-Omda, told AFP.
Omda claimed the Israeli airline had been late in paying for two limousine rentals from the Egyptian immigrant's company. "We are sure that he had no connection with extremist organizations. He is a pious Muslim but he is not at all extremist. The proof of this is that he agreed to work with the Israeli company El Al," Omda said.
Omda continued to say that Hadayet went to the United States in 1992 "to improve his level of life" and hoped to obtain US nationality with the help of his paternal uncle, physical therapist Ahmed Hadayet, a longtime US resident.
"His uncle helped him to work and to take the green card after his arrival in 1992 and he was supposed to have taken US nationality this year," said Omda, a businessman in the city of Tanta north of Cairo.
he family has not been able to contact Hadayet's uncle in the United States. "We have tried to call him to find out more about the incident but his mobile phone did not answer yesterday," Omda said.
Married and the father of two boys, aged 12 and 6, Hadayet, who obtained a degree in commerce from Cairo's Ain Shams university, comes from a middle class Egyptian family with several senior officers in the armed forces.
The late Salah Hadayet, a cousin of his father, was a former minister of scientific research and a member of the Free Officers movement, which overthrew the Egyptian monarchy in 1952.
Meanwhile, Hadayet's family said they wanted to bury him in Egypt’s capital of Cairo. "We are in contact with the ministry of foreign affairs to recover his body but we want first that the truth be established because we are sure that he could not be a murderer," Omda said.
Police also continue to block access to the family's home in a six-story apartment building in Abbasiya. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
