MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD
Event: Interview of FBI Special Agenf... ...
.....
Type of event: Interview Law Enforcement Privacy
Dates: January 5,2004
Special Access Issues: None
Prepared by: Raj De 9/11 Law Enforcement
Sensitive
Team Number: lA
," ..
Location: FBI, Phoenix Field Offlce{!! ,
Participants - Non-Commi$~iJn:
,:/!
Jr,
,"
Ass~tant Geil.e~·~~sel
\ ;'!. \:., ......
Sean O'Neill
Participants - Commissio~!~ i1ich~:~l Jacobson, Hyon Kim, R.aj Qe
Special Ag~n~
Hamdan al-ShalaWl,1
/!
:':.:
!~
:janel
prep~d
.
to disis
I.
thef~l;&ng
~,",\
CT subjects:
late 200~h~:~~~::i~:tramed~e:r~i~k~ Z:o~g IUsass6~iate~\n Phoeni!'~:
was referred to as "Sh·~ik1iHamd~."\ Shalawi i~ well-educated; he t~ceiveQ a PhD in
linguistics. II'rot~d
speculated ~eda/operatlve~I,
that .sev~ra\l Arab stu~el1ts haye been studXing lirt~istics, and
, ',,:
noted that Shalawi co-authored a l.ngri~istics paper jabouti
".
Iwith al
rI I
Khalid A bdulhassan. He suggeste~ that we speak/with SA Ken Williams, who may have
more insight on this speculative theory,
....:' " \ !\
!\
r-----~tate~ that agents!in Phoenix aIldcurrently working to establish a timeline
for Shalawi. He stated that there is a gap from August 2000-August 2001 when Sha1awi
is unaccounted for. .During this period, Shalawi' was out of contact with his professors.
Moreover, he ~los~idhi~ bank account. i~~Ju!y ~poo.1 lOoted that Shalawi h~s
stated he was In the United States during this time, and that he only recently sold hIS
house to the current imam at the .lslamic Cultural Center in Tempe.
. '~,'
I ~oted that Shalawi had numerous associates of concern to the FBI.
Shalawi also admitted to being ~ mujahidin in the late 1980s and meeting Azzam.
Finally, Shalawi has some strange travel in h1s past - for instance, in August 1997 he
flew t? South ~~ca.1 ~oted th~t ~h~re is intelligen~e that a1 Qae~a may have
establIshed traimng camps In South Africa and that Shalawi' s travel was Just before the
East Africa bombings. ..
9/11 Personal Privacy
li~ r l1J. ~\l .~ 1
"CtLA1F1EO B'i .Lf.. - -"
Y. IJ;' r - -:..v ...l' -'1- - - .........
, ' ;
.,.
',\ ~-...-v,.·-·-'''~-~
·.....·····:>:~9/11 Law Enforcement
///~~f~;;fi:rri vacy
I Istatedfuat Shalawi trie4t6reenretth,~ !tJnited States in August 2001. He
listed Phoenix as his intended destination. r-7T1s»~puIated that Shala wi may have
~;tP~
been part ofa "second wave" with,Muham~t~li~;and that he might have been
slated to attack a West Coast target, r---ln6t~':dfuaf:he believed Khalid al-Midhar
and Nawaf ~I-Hazmi also m~~have a We~t coast plot. When as~ed of
what he beheved supportedthis theory ./ eferred to their presence at the meeting
in Kuala Lampur regarding the Cole; the act t at they w~re highly trained in explosives;
their arrival on the West Coast; and their late conneF~iop.\"to
the other 9/11 operatives .
. I· 's~id he thought the.Amer~ta W~st ~~ide~t was suspicious. Parti~~larly
SUSpiCIOUS was the fact that Shalawi and Qudhaieen wereiable to arrange for publicity so
quickly - their press conference was held the morning aft~r they arrived in Washington
DC. It was almost as if they had anticipated the si~u~tionl ~peculated.
r-lstated that Shalawi'sirim assJciateJ ~~re: Ghassan al-Sharbi,.Zak
Soubra~bdullah . :/ ~d: u~411een.1 Iwas a friend of
Abdullah, and Sharbi said he met Shalawi a !!! po~se. Along with Thukair and
Sulami.] Qtostedthe Saudi student meetings.] ',Jdld not believe that the FBI J
could determine exactly when andhow often 9/1J hiJac~er~ffat;li Hanjour and Nawaf al-
Hazmi attended these meetings. Rayed Abdullah tated, was probably akin to a
"spiritual advisor" to ...
Hanjour and Hazmi co~pared him to a Blind Sheikh-like
figure. Abdullah hada reputation as a religious person, and he.even helped lead prayers
at the ICC. ',,! !!\:i:
,::':,:
N
"
With respect to I\. /' ji s~atedth~t thi~ subject was one of several
a
brothers and had been Drought to the '~ntion of the FBI \by a.former source, Akeel
Collins. I !was in the ~·~oenix area from mid- ~999 t~ mid-2000, where he was
supposedly taking aviation mechanic classes, His prothe~ I twas alsp in the area
around the same time and/ may....have been'a student as welt [were in the I
southeast part of Arizona casing. the border. AIso.r--1phone in Portland, Oregon,
where he used to live, had been h:t contact with' a ~~er known to be used by Abu
Zubaydah. Finally, two al Qaediopera~ve$ c~ptur~d by ~~iMabahith were found with a
passport belonging to one of the . rotl\er:s.·\ ;.!! ! .
;' ..... . \.. '\ ; '\ :1! i
I t~.
now married to .. '. '.i
arid liv~ In Saudi Arabia. Collins was
arrested last June·;.l'!Ps also in Sati~l A-ra)a; qid not think that he had been
interviewed by the~itg I I
_~~-~---~~---.J ..
i
I.. .......
/ ,','/.'..... .... .., ...... "\ \. \:: ;ii!
...----tn9ted that-there "s.,nothing·4i
