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American Morning

Authorities Search Apartment in Anthrax Probe

Aired August 02, 2002 - 08:07   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Now on to the anthrax investigation. The FBI is focusing even closer than ever on a 48-year-old Maryland man who worked at the U.S. Army's biowarfare defense lab. Agents searched Steven Hatfill's apartment yesterday for the second time.
And CNN's Kathleen Koch joins us from Frederick, Maryland with the very latest on that -- good morning.

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.

Well, as you can see, the scene is very different here today. It's very quiet at this apartment building. The apartment is located just outside the gate of Fort Detrick. Now, that is the home of the Army's biowarfare defense lab, and that is, indeed, where Steven Hatfill worked from 1997 through 1999. He was a researcher there and while he never worked directly with anthrax, sources say that he did have access to a lab that contained the Ames strain of the virus. And that was the same one that was used in last fall's anthrax mailings in both D.C. and to New York that led to five deaths.

No one right now will say what is behind this renewed scrutiny of Hatfill. Again, the agents here yesterday swept through his suspect, searched trash bins, apparently also searched the apartment of a friend, though that friend has not been identified and we've gotten no explanation as to why that person's apartment was searched.

Now, when Hatfill's apartment was searched back in June for the first time, they were looking primarily for traces of anthrax. And sources say they also searched a storage locker in Florida that Hatfill used from time to time and law enforcement sources tell CNN that no incriminating evidence was found.

Sources also say that Hatfill took a polygraph and that that, though, has given them no conclusive results.

Now, at this point, Hatfill no longer works in this area. He was fired from the defense contractor he was working for in March of 2002. And some of the initial suspicion centered on Hatfill because when he worked for that defense contractor back in 1999, he commissioned a study in which they looked at a fictional scenario of terrorists sending anthrax through the mail -- Paula.

ZAHN: Well, the other thing, Kathleen, that's come to light is he apparently put his name on a list for active consideration to go to Iraq if weapons inspections resumed. Has that raised any red flags?

KOCH: We do know, indeed, that his name is on this list, the list of scientists who are on standby to go back there. But, Paula, that is fairly routine. I lived for years in Columbia, Maryland and my next door neighbor was one of the people who was on that list, as well. He had gone to Iraq just after the Persian Gulf War.

And so that's pretty standard for people with this type of background.

ZAHN: And, of course, the other thing that got attention is what you mentioned in an earlier report about his commissioning a study on a fake terrorism scenario whereby anthrax would be delivered in the mail.

KOCH: Indeed. But his attorney is quoted in the "Washington Post" this morning, Hatfill's attorney, as saying that Hatfill was cooperating with the FBI, that he volunteered to let them into his apartment again yesterday, just as the search in June was voluntary, but that law enforcement sources, I mean, say that they decided instead to go with a search warrant because that would give them more leeway to do a broader search.

ZAHN: All right, thanks so much for the update.

Kathleen Koch reporting from Maryland for us this morning.

KOCH: You bet, Paula.

ZAHN: Appreciate it.

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