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Terrorist was 'devout student who
wanted to work for a charity'
By Hannah Cleaver
Last Updated: 1:27am BST
17/09/2001
MOHAMED ATTA had plans for
the future. If he had been scheming for years to kill himself and
thousands of others in an act of terrorism, he did nothing to
betray that intention during his eight-year stay in
Germany.
The 33-year-old, who used a different part of his
name, El Amir, while in Hamburg, said he wanted to work for charity
to improve the poor areas of Cairo, the city he told friends in
Germany that was his birthplace and his home, where his family
still lived, and where he trained as an architect.
Atta was a student at the Technical University of
Hamburg-Harburg, between 1992 and 1999, leaving with a diploma in
town planning. He remained registered as a student for a further
year.
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He was active in the university, starting up an
Islamic group and lobbying for a room within the student union
building for Muslims to use for prayer, saying that Muslim students
could not study if they could not pray.
The room has been searched by police, who
reportedly removed a computer before sealing it off. There had been
a website but that was closed down by the police.
Prof Diettmar Machule said: "Mohamed El Amir was
someone who was in no way extreme. He was helpful, upstanding and
correct, hard-working, intellectual and devout in his belief. That
is something you would notice. But it was not an extreme kind of
belief.
"I always thought that he would go on to a good
future." A friend and fellow student, who asked not to be named,
said: "We talked about the future. He said he hoped to work for an
international development organisation in Cairo."
The 35-year-old, who studied town planning with
Atta went on two foreign study trips with him, to Egypt and Syria.
"The man in the photograph is the Mohamed El Amir that I knew, but
I cannot believe that he would do such a terrible thing," said the
friend, a Protestant German.
He added that El Amir seemed to lead a deeply
devout and earnest but otherwise unremarkable life during his time
in Hamburg. "He certainly had other contacts outside of college,
other friendships," the friend said.
"He would introduce me to friends of his we might
meet on the street, mostly other Arabic men. Although I went to the
flat to visit him I never met his other friends
there."
That flat is now empty, its front door smudged
with the dark grey powder police use to show up fingerprints. A
police sticker seals the door.
Violetta Sarnowski, 35, who lives in the flat
above, said El Amir often hosted noisy and late prayer sessions
with groups of men, some of whom dressed in traditional Middle
Eastern clothing.
Marwan Al Shehhi, 23, from the United Arab
Emirates, the man thought to have steered the second jet into the
World Trade Centre, was registered at the same university and
shared El Amir's flat.
But, while El Amir was well-known on campus and
was devoted to his studies, Al Shehhi rarely turned up for lectures
or seminars. "It seems he was a phantom student," a college
spokesman said.
Ziad Samir Jarrah, 26, from Lebanon, who was on
the plane which crashed in Pennsylvania, was also registered at the
university. A girlfriend called police to register him missing
shortly after the attacks.
They found that he had contacts with the two other
Hamburg suspects and was on the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania.
He left a suitcase of papers relating to flying jumbo jets at his
girlfriend's flat.
Police have been unable to trace Said Bahaji, a
26-year-old Moroccan and another "student" in Hamburg. The German
press has reported that his wife Nasche, 21, has had no contact
with him since the attacks.
She is said to have told police that he left
Germany on Sept 2 to go to Pakistan to carry out a traineeship with
a computer company. The couple have a young child.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk
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