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CNN Live Today
Government Approved Visas for Two of 9/11 Hijackers
Aired March 12, 2002 - 14:15 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: A Florida flight school apparently received from the government student visas for two of the 9/11 hijackers, visas which were approved after the attacks. Mark Potter live in Miami chasing this story down today. What have we learned, Mark?
MARK POTTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Bill, this is definitely a strange story. Yesterday, we went to Venice, Florida to visit Huffman Aviation International where the terrorists Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi received flight training before, about a year before, the September 11 attacks, in which they flew jets into the World Trade Center.
And yesterday, while there, on the six-month anniversary of that attack, we got a big surprise. Ruddi Dekkers, the owner of the company, said that he had just received these two letters from an INS processing center saying that a request for student visas for Atta and al-Shehhi had been approved last summer. Now why those approval letters arrived yesterday, six months after both men died, left Dekkers scratching his head.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RUDDI DEKKERS, PRESIDENT, HUFFMAN AVIATION: I have received here the visas from Atta and al-Shehhi. Atta had an M-1 visa, and al- Shehhi had also an M-1 visa granted by the United States government.
POTTER: When did you apply for those?
DEKKERS: We applied for those in August 29, 2000.
POTTER: When were they granted?
DEKKERS: July 17, 2001.
POTTER: Before the September 11 attack?
DEKKERS: Before the September 11 attack.
POTTER: They were granted visas as student pilots?
DEKKERS: That's correct. That's correct. But the funny thing is I received them today.
POTTER: In March?
DEKKERS: March 11, 2002.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
POTTER (on camera): Now a spokesman for the Immigration and Naturalization Service blamed it on a huge backlog of cases and paperwork involving millions of applications a year. As you can see here, he said: "It is certainly embarrassing that the letters showed up at this late date. But it does serve to illustrate what we have been saying since 1995, that the current system for collecting information and tracking foreign is antiquated, outdated, inaccurate and untimely.
Now that spokesman, Russ Bergeron (ph), points out that a new system for tracking international systems has -- students, rather, has been tested and is being offered to schools this fall, schools who train international students. And new rules are being drawn up that will require these schools, including flight schools, to get on line and to comply.
Now a former INS district director told CNN just a short time ago that these letters should never have gone out. He agrees that indeed, this is quite an embarrassment and in his view, it shows that sometimes at the INS, the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. Bill, back to you.
HEMMER: Mark, I think a lot of people, when they hear this story, they are just going to be shaking their heads. How would this situation have been able to be avoided or sidestepped or never come about?
POTTER: Well, if the INS had a system that in real time, or at least more quickly than now, processed these applications. The application was approved last summer, but took this long for the letter to go out. And again, the INS blames this on this backlog, this huge backlog that they are trying to correct. How it could have been corrected, according to the INS, is to put into effect this system that they are going to put online this fall.
HEMMER: Yes, they must be embarrassed, as you pointed out there, red-faced over this today. Thank you, Mark. Mark Potter, exclusive story there today from Miami, Florida on visas being handed out to two of the hijackers.
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