FBI details two hijackers’ activities in Portland before attacks

PORTLAND – Surveillance video captured hijackers at two ATMs, a gas station and a Wal-Mart in the Portland area hours before the two boarded a commuter flight that linked up with one of the jetliners that crashed into the World Trade Center, the FBI said Thursday.

Charles S. Prouty, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston office, released fresh details Thursday about the activities of Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari, who were in Portland on the night before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Prouty said the agency’s chronology of the activities of Atta and Alomari was being made public in hopes it would generate tips from residents who might have more information about the time the two men spent in Portland.

“If this jogs anybody’s memory, please give us a call,” said Prouty, who would not respond to questions about the Portland link to the investigation.

Prouty made a videotape that included several enlarged photographs taken of the two men at locations near the Portland International Jetport.

One picture, taken at 8:41 p.m. on Sept. 10, showed the Fast Green ATM machine behind Pizzeria Uno restaurant near the Maine Mall in South Portland. They had stopped 10 minutes earlier at a nearby KeyBank drive-up ATM, the FBI said.

Atta and Alomari also were caught by a surveillance camera at the nearby Jetport Gas Station on Western Avenue at 9:05 p.m. In those pictures, Atta was wearing a distinctive black-and-white shirt in which the right third is white and the left two-thirds black.

“It’s an unusual shirt,” said Prouty, who suggested that anyone who encountered Atta that night might recall him by his attire.

Another surveillance camera caught Atta entering the Wal-Mart store on Payne Road in Scarborough at 9:22 p.m.

The FBI said Atta spent about 20 minutes at the store. The local manager referred calls to corporate headquarters in Arkansas, where spokesman Tom Williams declined to elaborate on what Atta may have purchased.

Williams said Wal-Mart is continuing to work with investigators, but “beyond that it would be inappropriate for us to comment any further.”

The final picture, which was already released, was taken the next day as Atta and Alomari passed through a security gate at the airport and boarded their commuter flight.

Atta and Alomari drove to Portland in a car that was rented at Boston’s Logan International Airport, then boarded a US Airways flight back to Boston. From there, they boarded American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11.

Before Thursday’s statement from the FBI, state and local police had said there was nothing to indicate the pair had any connection to Maine other than spending the night and taking a flight the next morning.

Nonetheless, some area residents claim to have spotted Atta in or around Portland up to a year or more before the attack.

“My concern is why did they come to Portland, Maine? That question hasn’t been answered, to my knowledge,” Portland Police Chief Michael Chitwood said last month.

No answers have yet emerged, although Stephen McCausland, a spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety, said two hijackers may have come to Portland to avoid having them all enter through Logan.

After driving to Portland, Alomari and Atta spent the night before the attack at the Comfort Inn in South Portland, about a mile from the Portland International Jetport, authorities said.

The rental car was seized at the jetport and taken to the state police crime lab in Augusta. Its contents have not been divulged.

Portland police last month released a print of a frame from the videotape showing Atta and Alomari passing through the jetport. They arrived 15 minutes before the scheduled departure of the commuter flight, which actually took off 15 minutes late.

A bag that Atta checked at the airport in Portland never made the connecting flight in Boston. Officials said the bag contained a four-page document in Arabic that contained instructions for the mission as well as religious references.

Reported sightings of Atta in the Portland area included those by two employees at the Portland Public Library, who notified investigators after seeing pictures of the hijackers.

Kathleen Barry, supervisor for the library’s serial center, said she is sure Atta visited the library several times during the spring of 2000.