London-based oil executive linked to 9/11 hijackers

A US counter-terrorist agent told The Daily Telegraph: “The registration
numbers of vehicles that had passed through the Prestancia community’s north
gate in the months before 9/11, coupled with the identification documents
shown by incoming drivers on request, showed that Mohamed Atta and several
of his fellow hijackers, and another Saudi suspect still at large, had
visited 4224 Escondito Circle.”

The suspect was Adnan Shukrijumah, an al-Qaeda operative who is on the FBI’s
Most Wanted list, with a $5 million bounty on his head.A decade after the
world’s worst terrorist attack, which claimed the lives of 3,000 people, Mr
al-Hijji is resident in London, working for the European subsidiary of Saudi
Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s state oil company. Described as a career counsellor,
he is based in the offices of Aramco Overseas Company UK Limited and lives
in an expensive flat in central London.

In email correspondence with the Telegraph, Mr al-Hijji strongly denied any
involvement in the plot, writing: “I have neither relation nor association
with any of those bad people/criminals and the awful crime they did. 9/11 is
a crime against the USA and all humankind and I’m very saddened and
oppressed by these false allegations.

“I love the USA. My kids were born there, I went to college and university
there, I spent a good portion of my life there and I love it.”

Mr al-Hijji’s account is supported by the FBI, which has stated: “At no time
did the FBI develop evidence that connected the family members to any of the
9/11 hijackers … and there was no connection found to the 9/11 plot.’’

Bob Graham, a former US senator who, in addition to co-chairing the
congressional inquiry into 9/11, was chairman of the US senate intelligence
committee at the time, disputes the FBI denials. He has long believed that
there was Saudi support for the 19 terrorists, 15 of whom were subjects of
the kingdom. He cites two secret documents to which he has recently had
access.

The first document, Graham says, is “not consistent with the public statements
of the FBI that there was no connection between the 9/11 hijackers and the
Saudis at the Sarasota home. Both documents indicate that the investigation
was not the robust inquiry claimed by the FBI.”

Mr al-Hijji, 38, moved with his family to Britain in 2003, setting up home in
a rented four-bedroom detached house in the Southampton suburb of Totton.
His stay there appears to have been uneventful.

The al-Hijjis’ abrupt departure from Sarasota aroused the suspicion of their
next-door neighbour, Patrick Gallagher. He emailed the FBI within two days
of 9/11 to report the disappearance of the couple and their young children.

Reports released recently by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement refer
to the “suspicious manner and timing” of the family’s departure.

One document states: “In mid-August 2001 the above subjects purchased a new
vehicle and renewed the registration on several other vehicles. On Aug 27
2001 a moving truck appeared and moved the subjects out of the house. Left
behind were the vehicles and numerous personal belongings, including food,
medicine, bills, baby clothing etc.”

The document goes on to state that Mr al-Hijji and Esam Ghazzawi, his
father-in-law and the owner of the Escondito Circle house, had been “on the
FBI watch list” prior to 9/11.

Mr al-Hijji described the allegations against him as “just cheap talk” and
denied having abandoned his home in undue haste, explaining: “No, no, no.
Absolutely not true. We were trying to secure the [Aramco] job. It was a
good opportunity.”

He said his wife and children followed him out to Saudi Arabia a few weeks
after he left. She and his American-born mother-in-law had been questioned
by the FBI when they returned to the United States to settle the family’s
affairs.

But he was not questioned when he returned to America for a two-month period
in 2005.

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