>www.cairotimes.com
>
>"A moulid for journalists"
>
>Muhammad Atta Sr is in the center of the media storm
>
>Ashraf Khalil
>
>Can we quote you on that?
>
>
>
>The journalistic frenzy touched off by the 11 September attacks on America
>has produced no more maudlin a figure than Muhammad Al Amir Atta. The
>semi-retired lawyer, whose son Muhammad Atta is accused by US authorities of
>piloting the first hijacked plane into the World Trade Center, has spent the
>past 10 days in the center of a media maelstrom. A seemingly endless stream
>of foreign journalists, some of whom flew in just for the interview, have
>beat a path to Atta’s home just off of Pyramids Road.
>
>What they have found, for the most part, is an angry, grieving man who
>defends his son as a gentle soul and speaks of a set-up by the Israel
>intelligence services to turn global public opinion against the Muslim world.
>
>"Mossad and Israel are who benefits the most from this.... They want to try
>to hang this on the Arab world," Atta told the Cairo Times in a 19 September
>interview. "When America learns that Mossad did it, they won’t be able 
>to say
>anything."
>
>Interviews with the elder Atta have been chaotic affairs-spiced with
>red-faced rants against American foreign policy and the conspiracy of which
>he says his son is an innocent victim.
>
>Mentioning the American military strikes against Iraq, Sudan and Libya, he
>asked, "Isn’t that terrorism? America teaches the world terrorism."
>
>But Atta also expressed his dislike for prime suspect Osama Bin Laden, and
>offered his sympathy to the American people and the victims of the attacks in
>New York and Washington DC.
>
>"I love the American people. They’re good people," he said. "I mourn for
>them–for anyone, American, Russian or Indian, who died. These are all 
>people."
>
>But his affection did not extend to the American government. Asked if he had
>a message for the American people, Atta said, "Elect someone different than
>these oil millionares who want to control the Arab world. Dick Cheney is a
>billionare from oil. Bush, his family has been in oil for generations...
>America hasn’t had an honorable president since Roosevelt."
>
>A 24 September press conference, organized by the local Foreign Press
>Association, was equally raucous-with so many media representatives crowding
>into a Shepherd Hotel ballroom that one cameraman pronounced the affair "a
>moulid for journalists."
>
>The younger Atta, who graduated from Cairo University with a degree in
>architecture, hasn’t lived in Egypt since 1993. He spent most of the past
>decade studying urban planning in Hamburg, Germany, where colleagues
>described him as decent, quietly religious and soft-spoken to the point of
>shyness.
>
>The father said his son was raised to be solidly apolitical and to focus on
>"work, home and family." He also said Muhammad had expressed his distaste for
>Bin Laden after the mid-90s bombing of the Egyptian embassy in Pakistan.
>"That was the only political opinion he ever expressed to me in his life."
>
>The elder Atta said he had last seen his son about 18 months ago in Egypt. He
>had never been to visit him in Germany, and knew little of his life there. He
>also claimed that his son had called him two days after the attack, and
>described it as "a normal conversation." But he snarled when asked to give
>further details. Asked what country Muhammad had called from, he said, "The
>name of the country isn’t written on the phone."
>
>Asked where Muhammad was now, he said, "Ask Mossad."
>
>Atta said he hadn’t heard from his son since the post-attack phone call, 
>and
>that he has never called his son since his departure in 1993.
>
>"He calls us," he said. "We don’t even have his number."
>
>Prior to the press conference, Atta had promised to provide new evidence that
>would prove his son’s innocence. But in the end, the evidence he 
>produced (a
>combination of widespread conspiracy theory that 4000 Jewish World Trade
>Center workers had been warned to stay home and claims that the man pictured
>in published photos from an airport surveillance camera had a heavier build
>than his son) failed to convince the media pack.
>
>Atta maintained that the evidence against the accused 
>hijackers–including an
>Arabic flight manual in a car in the Logan airport parking lot and his 
>son’s
>United Arab Emirates passport, had been faked and planted in order to create
>a rush to judgement against the Muslim world.
>
>"They found a flight manual in the car," he said. "Is he going to be studying
>on the way?"
>
>
>
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>
>--
>
>
>Volume 5, Issue 29
>27 SEPTEMBER - 3 OCTOBER 2001
>
>
>Photograph by WILLIAM CONROY