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Filipinos Recall Hijack Suspects Leading a High Life
Don Kirk International Herald Tribune
Saturday, October 6, 2001
MABALACAT, Philippines They stayed at a popular resort hotel here,
drank whiskey with Philippine bargirls, dined at a restaurant that
specializes in Middle Eastern cuisine and visited at least one of the
local flight schools.
The two men suspected by the FBI of being at the controls of the
planes that flew into New York's World Trade Center on Sept. 11 left
those traces behind from visits from 1998 to 2000 to this hustling
market town outside a former U.S. Air Force base, according to local
residents who say they recognized the two from news photographs.
Philippine and U.S. investigators have been checking out the reported
movements here of Marwan Al-Shehhi and Mohamed Atta. They would not
confirm the accused hijackers' presence in the Philippines, but the
local hotel workers were willing to discuss them.
Mr. Al-Shehhi, whom the FBI has identified as the pilot of United
Airlines Flight 175 when it slammed into the trade center's south
tower, threw a party with six or seven Arab friends at the Woodland
Park Resort Hotel here in December, said a former waitress at the
hotel, Gina Marcelo. "There were about seven people," she said. "They
rented the open area by the swimming pool for 1,000 pesos. They drank
Johnnie Walker Black Label whiskey and mineral water. They barbecued
shrimp and onions. They came in big vehicles, and they had a lot of
money. They all had girlfriends." She cited "one big mistake they
made." Unlike most foreign visitors, "They never tipped," she said.
"If they did, I would not remember them so well."
Victoria Brocoy, a chambermaid at the Woodland, recalls Mr. Atta, the
Egyptian who investigators believe flew American Airlines Flight 11
into the trade center's north tower. "He was not friendly. If you say
hello to him, he doesn't answer. If he asks for a towel, you do not
enter his room. He takes it at the door."
Mr. Atta was by no means a recluse. "Many times I saw him let a girl
go at the gate in the morning," she said. "It was always a different
girl."
:The accounts here tend to confirm reports from the United States that
at least some of the accused hijackers had free-wheeling lifestyles
full of sex and alcohol, and took precautions to keep their identities
secret.
They are assumed to have gravitated here in search of flying lessons.
The area is a hub for pilots and flying instructors, Filipinos as well
as foreigners, as a result of its relationship to Clark Air Base,
converted to a special economic zone after the withdrawal of U.S.
forces in 1991. At least two flying schools offer lessons, one of them
in the zone; the other, the Angeles City Flying Club, is owned by the
same corporation as the Woodland hotel, about 20 kilometers to the
east.
The hijacking suspects were introduced to the hotel, according to
workers who saw them, by a Jordanian businessman who runs a travel
agency in Manila and often stays there but denies having known them.
Their presence aroused little curiosity in the male-dominated foreign
community that ranges from retired military people to tourists from
Europe, Australia and the Middle East, many of them drawn by the cheap
prices and the availability of the local women.
The investigation by Philippine and American authorities has focused
not only on the timing of their visits to this town about 100
kilometers (60 miles) north of Manila but also into exactly what they
were doing and why.
The search is complicated by the fact that they made certain not to
register under their own names, but two patterns have emerged from the
investigation, according to Philippine police officials. The first is
that the two displayed a keen interest in learning how to fly small
planes, and the second is that they dominated a clique of Arab
visitors, most of whom have not been seen since shortly before the
attacks.
Ferdinand Abad, who was working as a security guard at the entrance to
the hotel in mid-1999, remembers Mr. Atta asking at what time he
should wait outside the Woodland hotel for a van to take him to the
Angeles City Flying Club.
"I told him about 7 in the morning, and he gave me a tip of 50 pesos,"
- about $1 - Mr. Abad said. "Two or three times a week the van would
pick him up. He didn't say he was going to fly. After our first
meeting, he never talked, never said hello."
The driver of the van, Mr. Abad said, was Melvin Troth, manager of the
flying club, who retired as a master sergeant in the U.S. Air Force in
1986 after serving his last tour at nearby Clark Air Base. Mr. Troth
told investigators, however, that the names of Mr. Atta and Mr.
Al-Shehhi did not appear in his records.
"I pick up a lot of people and take them out here," he protested to a
colonel from the Philippine National Police headquarters, one of a
stream of official visitors to the Flying Club in recent days, as a
reporter was present. "It's a regular procedure. I don't remember
them."
On the base, converted to a special economic zone after the Philippine
Senate refused to extend the bases agreement with the United States in
1991, Philippine officials respond to such denials with derision
mingled with serious concern.
"We want the whole world to know about the danger of these people
around here," said Tony Salenga, chief executive assistant to the
chairman of the Clark Development Corp., which is responsible for
attracting investors to the former base to set up stores and factories
there. "We believe they were establishing cells right here."
Residents recall that friends of Mr. Atta and Mr. Al-Shehhi often
gathered at the Woodland Park and at the Jerusalem Restaurant in
Angeles City, which borders the base just south of here.
Trudis Dago, manager of the restaurant, remembered Mr. Atta as someone
who "would never smile and would never talk to anyone except his
friends."
"I knew this face when I saw it in the paper," she said.