Lackland-area Apartments Come Under FBI Scrutiny ; Complex Houses Foreign Students

Lackland-area Apartments Come Under FBI Scrutiny

Complex Houses Foreign Students

by Bill Hendricks
San Antonio Express-News
September 22, 2001

Federal agents investigating the Sept. 11 attacks have visited an apartment complex near Lackland AFB several times in recent days to inquire about foreign nationals who had lived there, leasing agent Joe Segura said Friday.

Investigators, who identified themselves as FBI agents, had a list of names that they compared to resident files going back several years, he said.

Segura, who said he has worked at Suncrest Apartments about two years, went on to say he recognized a few names on the FBI list, including Ziad Jarrahi - one of four suspected hijackers who took control of United Airlines Flight 757 at the Newark, N.J., airport. That's the flight that crashed in a remote area of western Pennsylvania.

The leasing agent recalled a former resident by the same name, but couldn't say for certain whether the former resident was the same Ziad Jarrahi that the FBI is seeking.

The name of another suspected terrorist, Salem Alhamzi, who was aboard the hijacked airplane that crashed into the Pentagon, also has turned up on some local records.

However, federal officials Thursday said some of the 19 suspected hijackers may have stolen the identities of law-abiding Middle Easterners, further complicating the probe.

The Suncrest Apartments complex in the 5400 block of West Military Drive sits near Lackland's south perimeter and consists of 477 units. About half of the residents at the complex are foreign nationals serving in their countries' military, including several Arab nations, Russia and other countries, Segura said.

Many are students at Lackland's foreign-language school, he said.

He said the FBI first came to the complex on the Friday after the attacks. Agents returned Monday and visited again almost every day this week, he said.

At least part of the FBI's investigation into the terrorist attacks has focused on several potential San Antonio connections.

Agents have made inquiries about foreign military personnel studying on temporary duty at Lackland, about students at privately owned flight schools and about a Saudi Arabian doctor in a residency program at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

The physician, 34-year-old Al-Badr Al-Hazmi, is being held in New York City as a material witness.

Since the attack, federal authorities have interviewed the operators of at least three San Antonio-area flight schools, talked to officials at the health science center and questioned Al-Hazmi's neighbors in a gated townhouse community off Babcock Road near the South Texas Medical Center.

Until Sept. 11, a new group of Saudi military students would arrive to replace each departing group of their countrymen who had completed the three-month program at the language school, Segura said.

Since the attacks, however, no Saudi military have signed up to move into apartments being vacated by their countrymen, Segura said.

The operator at one local flight school said he currently didn't have any Arab students, but that over the years had trained scores of students from Arab countries.

Most were in the military and received their training while in San Antonio on temporary duty.

bhendricks@express-news.net

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of criminal justice, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.