從突尼西亞的失業自焚青年Mohamed Bouazizi，到開羅解放廣場無數在抗爭中死亡的無名青年，不禁讓人想起10年前那個同樣選擇最激烈絕決的手段去解決社會公義的埃及青年Mohamed Atta，重新閱讀當年的主流媒體報導和他兩位漢堡科技大學都市計畫學系同學的訪談，感慨無限。
source: TIME news by John Cloud Sunday, Sept. 30, 2001
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,176917-1,00.html
Before we get to his dislikes and disorders, his vexations as a child and his entanglements as an adult, let's poke inside Mohamed Atta's brain the night before he helped slaughter 7,000 people. "You have to remind yourself to listen and obey that night, for you will face situations that will require your obedience 100 percent," reads a letter found in Atta's luggage and in the belongings of two other hijackers. Atta would be happy to know that his evil was steadfast.
Though investigators are still excavating the hidden trails that led to Sept. 11, many point to Atta as the linchpin of the 19-man hijacking gang. From Hamburg, Germany, to South Florida to Las Vegas, Atta crossed paths with at least seven other hijackers. While some of these terrorists were barely out of their teens, Atta turned 33 days before the attacks. He seems to have been the center of gravity, the dour and meticulous ringleader. This is the story of how his malevolence was unleashed.
In Egypt, where Atta grew up, his family and friends describe a shy, unassuming young man who struggled to make his mark. They say he must have undergone a stark personality change to become the terrorist who supervised Sept. 11. Born in Kafr El Sheikh, a city on the Nile delta, Mohamed was the son of a lawyer and a homemaker. As a kid, his father says, he liked to play chess and disliked violent games. He was a scrawny youth--only 5 ft. 7 in. and until recently quite thin. (His dad called him "Bolbol," Arabic slang for a little singing bird.) Atta seemed overshadowed by his two sisters, who rose to become a zoology professor and a medical doctor. Atta graduated from Cairo University with a degree in architectural engineering and was an average student, according to his peers.
Atta made a few friends in school, but he was such a loner that when a classmate, Iman Ismail, drew a caricature of their class, she depicted Mohamed standing next to a sign posted on Egyptian military fences: COMING NEAR OR TAKING PHOTOS PROHIBITED. When it came to politics and religion, topics no Egyptian can avoid, he offered mainstream opinions. His friends don't remember ever seeing him pray, and they recall his harsh words for Islamic terrorists--"brainless, irresponsible people."
Which is why several of his Egyptian classmates could not accept his guilt in interviews with TIME. "I could never imagine him on a plane threatening people, killing people," says Ahmed Khalifa, 33, Atta's best friend at Cairo University. "He would be scared to death... He was not a leader. He had his opinion, but he was modest in everything. His emotions were steady, and he was not easily influenced or swayed. Mohamed was well liked because he never offended or bothered anyone." Says Ismail: "He was good to the roots."
But he had what could be interpreted as some ominous undercurrents. Atta could get exercised by the world's shortcomings, big and small. He spoke out impulsively against injustice. He was so sensitive that he could become emotional if an insect was killed. "He was a little bit pure," says Khaled Kattan, another classmate. "If he thought that I said or did something wrong, then he would say that in front of anybody."
Atta's father could be quite strict, according to friends. In interviews since Sept. 11, Mohammed El Amir, has denied that his son was involved in the attacks. "He is a moderate in his adherence to his faith like me and his mother," El Amir has said. But El Amir's politics suggest that Atta learned a few things about the world from his father. In a press conference last week, El Amir heatedly blamed the Israelis for the attacks and called the U.S. "the root of terrorism."
Cairo is one of the world's most crowded, impoverished cities, and by the early '90s, Atta felt the intense pressures on middle-class Egyptians not to slip in social rank. His friend Khalifa says Atta grew frustrated because he was unable to fulfill his academic ambitions in his homeland. He believed that political favoritism at Egyptian universities would keep him from the top spots.
So in autumn 1992, Atta enrolled at the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg, in a sleepy corner of northern Germany. He hoped to earn a degree in urban planning and then return to Egypt. In 1993, he befriended fellow student Volker Hauth, and the two often traveled and studied together in the next few years. Hauth liked Atta but sensed a rigidity in his friend. "I knew Mohamed as a guy searching for justice," Hauth told the Los Angeles Times. "He felt offended by this broad wrong direction the world was taking."
In the mid-'90s, Atta began disappearing from school for extended periods. He would tell his thesis adviser that he was going to Aleppo, Syria, to work on his thesis. (It explored the conflict between Islam and modernity as reflected in the city's planning, and it won high marks when completed in August 1999.) Atta was away from his job at a Hamburg consultancy for months in 1995; he reportedly said he had gone on a pilgrimage to Mecca. Co-workers recall him condemning terrorist attacks on tourists in Egypt. But he also bemoaned Western influence--specifically, the rise of skyscrapers--in Arab cities.
From mid-1997 to October 1998, Atta seems to have disappeared from Hamburg entirely. He told his thesis adviser that he was gone for family reasons, but it's clear that he underwent profound changes during this time. He returned to school with the bushy beard favored by fundamentalists. He was more serious. Hauth, who left the university at the end of 1995 and lost contact with Atta, told the London Observer his friend could laugh at jokes about Arab dictators. But Chrilla Wendt, who knew Atta after he returned, said she couldn't remember him smiling.
Atta had grown more sullen about his life prospects. His old friend Khalifa ran into him on a Cairo street one day in 1999. He found Atta depressed about not having a career or a family back home. Atta said he had made few German friends. "I think he felt that he had just been studying all those years," Khalifa recalls. "When I said goodbye, I was sad."
German authorities now believe that sometime that year, Atta began touching base with a wide range of people connected to terrorism. They point to his association with a Syrian businessman, Mamoun Darkazanli, who had power of attorney for a German bank account in the name of a man thought to be Osama bin Laden's finance chief. Darkazanli denied any ties to terrorists last week.
Whatever Atta was doing behind the scenes, he was publicly spreading the word of the Koran. Early in 1999, university officials gave him permission to found an Islamic student group. (Investigators believe he eventually met hijackers Marwan Al-Shehhi and Ziad Samir Jarrah in the group.) The 40 or so members gathered to pray every day. The moderate boy from the outskirts of Cairo had grown devout, and he was surrounding himself with like-minded compatriots.
At the end of 1999, Atta, Al-Shehhi and Jarrah reported their passports stolen, possibly to clear any record of travel to Afghanistan. Within weeks, Atta and Al-Shehhi flew to the U.S. for a visit. Even at this early date, Atta may have been planning an air attack. Sometime in spring 2000, Atta--now a clean-shaven cartoon version of an American in Tommy Hilfiger and heavy cologne--walked into a U.S. Department of Agriculture office in Homestead, Fla., and inquired about loans for buying crop dusters. The office doesn't offer such loans, and it turned him away.
Atta returned briefly to Europe, but on June 3, 2000, he arrived in Newark, N.J., from Prague with a six-month tourist visa. Within a month, Atta and Al-Shehhi signed up for flight training at Huffman Aviation International in Venice, Fla. When the two men moved into a little pink house in nearby Nokomis, they brought sweets to their rental agent. Their Venice landlady, Dru Voss, says that while Al-Shehhi was a likable guy, Atta was an icicle who never looked her in the eye.
Atta and Al-Shehhi were eager students. Together they paid Huffman some $40,000 for about four months of training. Huffman owner Rudi Dekkers took an immediate dislike to Atta, the smaller man. Dekkers recalls that Atta once told him he had lived in Germany. Dekkers then launched into German, but Atta just turned away. Neither Atta nor Al-Shehhi socialized with the other 15 to 20 students.
Atta's tourist visa expired on Dec. 3, 2000, but no one seemed to notice (one of several lapses in immigration procedures that aided the hijackers). On Dec. 21, Atta and Al-Shehhi got their pilot licenses. About a week later, they trained for three hours each on the Boeing 727 simulator at Simcenter Inc. at Opa-Locka Airport, outside Miami. By that time, the two men, who called themselves cousins, had each logged about 300 hours of flying time. They were still beginners, but they knew enough to maneuver an airborne plane.
Around this time Atta and other hijackers purchased global-positioning devices known as GPS-3s from Tropic-Aero, an aviation-supply shop in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. These $475 devices, about the size of Game Boys, are used by pilots to navigate. Says Jerry Carbone, Tropic-Aero's president: "It's so simple to use, you and your wife would be able to find your way in a 767 once it's up. It's sad if [the hijackers] were able to use something anyone can get at K Mart."
In January of this year, Atta hopped a flight from Miami to Madrid. It's unclear why he went, and when he returned to Miami International Airport on Jan. 10, he was allowed back in the country despite his expired visa. He didn't bother to list his flight or carrier, yet sailed through immigration. The next month, Atta and Al-Shehhi rented a single-engine Piper Warrior from a Gwinnett County, Ga., flight school. Like many other pilots, they were honing their skills. Atta inquired again about crop dusters--this time in Belle Glade, Fla. He and some men with him wanted to know how much fuel and chemicals the yellow 502 Air Tractors could carry and whether special skills were needed to pilot them.
On April 26, Broward County sheriff's deputy Josh Strambaugh stopped Atta for a traffic violation. Atta didn't have his license with him and was given a citation. He did not show up for his hearing, and on June 4 a warrant was issued for his arrest. But it was too late. By this time, Atta and his men were moving every couple of months, drifting from one low-rent dwelling to the next. Nearing the final stages of their plotting, they had become very careful. They kept to themselves and seem not to have even attended a mosque. Only occasionally would somebody notice them. One observer was Jim Woolard, owner of a World Gym in Delray Beach, Fla., who recalls Atta as "driven" on the weight machines (perhaps one reason that the folks back home would have trouble recognizing the newly beefy Atta in photos released after Sept. 11).
On June 29, Atta traveled to Las Vegas, where he stayed in a cheap room, with the DO NOT DISTURB SIGN constantly dangling from the door. While in town, investigators told the Associated Press, he met with two other hijackers, Salem Alhazmi and Hani Hanjour. His Hamburg pals Al-Shehhi and Jarrah were also there, which suggests a planning session. Four of the five men were on separate flights on Sept. 11, and one theory is that the four leaders of the four hijacked planes were there to work out final details.
On July 9, Atta made another trip to Madrid. He spent 10 days in Spain, running up 1,250 miles on his rental car. His time there remains murky, but last week six men suspected of belonging to a group financed by bin Laden were arrested in Spain on charges unrelated to Sept. 11. Investigators are tracing Atta's steps to see whether he met with them.
Atta returned to the U.S. on a business visa. He made another quick trip to Las Vegas but spent most of his time in Florida. Sources have told TIME that in the 10 days before Sept. 11, Atta received at least two wire transfers of money from a man investigators have linked with bin Laden. But the last days weren't all business. On Sept. 7, Atta, Al-Shehhi and another man visited Shuckum's Oyster Bar and Grill in Hollywood, Fla. Contrary to earlier reports of his carousing, Atta was the only one of the three who didn't drink alcohol. Instead, he downed cranberry juice all night, sugary fuel for the pinball machine--Golden Tee '97--that he played for 3 1/2 hours.
When Atta brought hell to the north tower of the World Trade Center, when he perished in the flames and had his picture beamed around the world, friends back in Egypt were dumbfounded. They looked and looked again at the photos, trying to find the kid they once knew. "To fly a plane, what a joke! Mohamed could hardly ride a bike," says classmate Osama Abul Enein. "He came from an average middle-class background. Mohamed no way could have done that," agrees Ibrahim Salah, 33, a Cairo engineer who knew him in college.
But he did. How does someone change so much? Experts point out that extremist groups in the Muslim world have been attracting an increasing number of recruits who grew up comfortably. "Just because you are educated and travel does not mean that you cannot join a militant organization," says Hala Mostafa, an authority on militant groups at al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo. "Terrorists should be illiterate or primitive? Not so."
Which still doesn't explain what happened to Mohamed Atta. "Let each find his blade for the prey to be slaughtered," reads a passage of the letter found in Atta's luggage. How Atta found his blade may never be known.
Ralph Bodenstein Interview
Beirut, Monday 15 October, 2001
source: Four Corners, Monday 12 November, 2001 ABC TV
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/atta/interviews/bodenstein.htm
Liz Jackson interviews Ralph Bodenstein who studied urban planning with Mohamed Atta at the Technical University of Hamburg-Harbug. He met him in 1994, when they, along with Volker Hauth, began working on a project in Cairo that was sponsored by the German government.
When did you first meet Mohamed?
Well I met him first at the end of 1994, he was studying in Hamburg…together with a colleague of his, Volker Hauth and they had prepared a project which was research to be done on plannings to be implemented or planned at least in the historic core of Cairo on the effects of traffic plannings and urban plannings on the social and urban situation and they had presented this project as a project for…a sort of non-governmental organisation but a big one who are very much interested in the exchange of scientists and of scholars that should be on the one hand between the US and Germany, on the other hand between Germany and third world countries and the program we were in was actually this program for the Third World countries which was sort of development politics program therefore, trainee program actually for young people from Germany to go into Third Eorld countries and to work with MDOs there and stuff like that so Volker Hauth and Mohamed El-Amir as he was called by then had developed this idea to make this project where they were looking for a third person to actually to come with them and I joined them in because I was doing Middle Eastern studies, urbanism and history of Islamic art.
I was studying it in Bonn actually so I joined them…and we did the preparation course together. This was actually the end of ’94 and went on until summer '95 and in August '95 we all left together for a three month field research period in Cairo.
So you worked together for about nine months?
I mean we went, you see these preparation courses they were just like a prolonged weekend every two months…like it was the first in December and then there was another one in February, another one in May something like that so it was only three courses. This is where we met for some days and we really were together then actually in Cairo for the first three months.
Tell us about the work in Cairo.
On the one hand we had to do field research on the ground in the … old town of Cairo, actually a specific area, all the area north of University, this is where we were working on, which are the northern city gates of historic Cairo and we were doing field research there actually on the economy on the ground. So actually what sort of craft and industry was there, of the traffic that was actually necessarily to supply them and to to get away the stuff they could use on the traffic actually of planes that were coming and going because it is not only a tourist site. Actually it's only the smallest part of Cairo which is really has been discovered by the tourist. The other part is just too far off or it's too popular actually for tourists to go there and we were mostly in these areas and … visiting factories and on the other hand we visited several planning offices as well from the municipality and the other state as well as private planning companies who were working for different projects of the state or of the municipality, and we looked at what they were actually planning in order to resolve problems; what problems did they actually see and how did they face them and deal with them. We tried to analyse actually the effects of these planning systems that were implemented on the existing social and economic structures and material structure of the story core.
What did Mohamed think about the kinds of plans that that the Egyptian Government or the tourist office had in mind for that particular area?
You see it's a little bit ambivalent to give a general judgment on that, because on the one hand there was this problem actually, of that there were many plans which just dealt with the issues in the interest of enforcing tourism in Cairo because one of the main state incomes actually for Egypt is the money which comes in from tourists, and so they pretty much concentrate on fostering tourism in Cairo as well which until then was not such a favourite place for tourists to stay so all these plans were pretty much concentrating on how to improve the situation for tourists and they did this by means of slowing the factories and the small scale industry which was there in the inner city and also by changing the physical environment like tearing down houses and trying to reconstruct historical structures that had been there before, now on the other hand you have the problem that these industries were also not in favour of the historical structures because if you've got aluminium factories in the city they only came there twenty years before. Before that they hadn't been there so they actually they just went in because it was a cheap place to set up a factory and it was central so you could easily deliver your clients to different parts of Cairo which made it actually a very important economic area which was cheap concerning rents and places but it was very effective in terms of space, and this was not in favour of historical monuments in the area. But on the other hand, many of the population, most of the people living there they were depending on these economic structures: they were working there and living there and it was very close for them so they had no transport costs… essential was the very low wages people are paid in Egypt so they were really depending on the fact that they did not have to come and go from a suburb to and from Cairo and paying buses and micro buses fees but they could just go walking or take a bicycle. So that was actually the general dilemma which every planning was facing there but what happened was that most of the plans that we dealt with and that we found were completely neglecting the social problem by just sending the people away and that's it. I mean they did not try and find other solutions for them. It was like clearing the space off of this industry, of the people and make it nicer for the tourists and so naturally I mean it wasn't only Mohamed but also Volker Hauth and me were very negative about this way of dealing with with the people living in the city …
What did he say to you about it?
We were discussing all this issues and he was naturally saying that he was aware of the fact, that actually these industries were not good for the historical city core but on the other hand [look at the] social programs if you were really to take people to other places, you should also create work for them in these places which certainly did not work, they did not do this and so he would have preferred to only bring out the most dangerous or the most problematic industries which had the highest pollution rates and to keep the other small industries which just had high noise emissions which were not so problematic actually and that was rather the more moderate approach that he would have voted for, but it was not in the plans. But they also wanted to break through … into the city core so they would ease the traffic flow and with this, this would have also brought down lots of historical structures. Mostly what we talk about is buildings from the 18th and 19th century which were still standing there and which when actually compared to a… mosque from the 14th century is not considered to be a valuable structure, and so then it's just brought down and that was also very problematic because we found that this would only increase the traffic flow in certain areas but it will not stop people from going there so it would just relocate the problem but not really solve it.
So when you talked amongst yourselves what was his feeling and your feeling about the way the Egyptian Government viewed those people who lived in that area and what importance should be placed on their right to live and work.
Yeah I mean he was criticising this complete ignorance of the social problems… because he was much more in favour of a more social approach to such an area in general in urban planning- that was one thing. On the other hand he also had a very strong interest in preserving the historical architectural structures which were witness to the history of one of the capital cities of the Islamic empires…. different centuries and has very beautiful and excellent architecture actually. It's extraordinary, actually it has changed a bit now but at that time it hadn't been really taken care of. There was more money put into excavating sites instead of renovating mosques and so there naturally was a need to do it and he was also pretty much in favour of that solution to preserve the city as it was actually grown and had grown throughout the centuries and to stop it from being completely transformed by houses like 19th century houses being brought down and high rises being built because this was what was going on. He was also very interested in the aspect of the rent, of these contracts, because of the fact that the rents hadn't been written for several decades, because there were several laws for renting, but the fact that the people living inside the houses they would not have the money to take care for a house and the owner wouldn't have it either because the income he got from the rent wasn't high enough; so the owners have an interest to let the houses run down and they did sometimes on purpose, so that the people would have to leave because the house was in such a bad state that you could not live there any longer. So they let water run down the walls for example and there was a war going on between between lease holders and renters of the houses and Mohamed was thinking about ways of finding ways of changing the laws for renting houses in order to improve the situation as well for the house owners as for the people living in them.
Do you think it's fair to say he had a strong sense of social justice?
Well yeah it was very very strong. It was a very obvious strong sense of justice yeah.
In terms of…?
Well in terms of that it was very critical on the high class approach you know the classes in Egypt they are I mean the people were well off they do not care for the daily problems of the poor people and there are many poor people in Egypt, especially in Cairo and he was interested in finding ways to give them a better life or to organise the city in the space in a way and also social structure in a way that these people would do better actually.
And how did he feel the Government was dealing with those issues?
Well the Government was dealing with it terms of self-interest. I mean the Government was dealing it in terms of profit which was naturally the state profit in tourism which was very important. The Government was dealing with it also in terms of probably rather traditional neglect of the popular interests actually and so there was no… you couldn't see at that time an attempt of the Government to seriously solve these sorts of problems. They were just trying to relocate them and to make things better for their own income and Mohamed was very critical of this and this was actually linked to a strong critics of the Government in not really taking an interest in the own people's fate anyway but just in their own … interest in their own political career and in their financial enrichment and for this they would like just to cooperate with anybody and there was also naturally the link to critics of the Egyptian Government working out, cooperating directly with the US.
Can I ask you about that specifically then. Did he talk to you about a concern about how close the Egyptian Government had become in terms of their interests and the interests of the United States?
Yeah I mean we had several talks on that and it was not only on a political scale that he was arguing against this approach of the US Government's political and financial influence in general in Egypt, it was also on a cultural level actually that he was objecting this.
What do you mean on a cultural level?
I mean they work differently in Cairo then they do for instance in Washington and there were actually always conflicts of interest because there were also people that were Americanised in Cairo and these were probably the elites because they went to the American University in Cairo and Mohamed was very critical of these people because he felt that … he was pretty right about this that they were very much …Alienated actually …
Alienated from…
Alienated from the general Egyptian public because they were a very small group but they were very influential and they were actually strongly pro American and dependent on American financing and trying to live in America and coming back and there was this sort of…
…cultural imperialism sort of…
Yeah but this was not only like imperialism the way that… Egyptians who were working for this, you see I mean. Cultural imperialism is not that one side … was presented. There were always local elites whose interest it is to strengthen this influence. So he was critical of this and there was this other history of the politics of when already Egypt opened to a strongly western influence and they had a liberalisation of the markets and they went away from the most socialist economic approach … and he was also critical of this because he thought that this sort of market capitalism was not a good solution for a country, as Egypt has a very big population and poor population would not have the means to afford everything in the market could offer…
He was opposed to the adoption of a more free-market capitalist approach that Egypt had taken?
Well I mean no, he was opposed to it and he was also pointing to details of it. For instance they were producing….strawberries. They were producing strawberries on the Egyptian fields which were not produced for the Egyptian market and were exported to Europe for instance, while at the same time they would have to import food for their own people, like wheat from the US, which he considered absurd. You know there was the old country being used for producing high class luxury products for foreign markets and then they had to again import nutrition from other countries at a certain price again actually to nutrify their own population. It was completely absurd.
And he talked to you about this?
Yeah I mean we were discussing this as well. I mean at a certain point I could point to this problem and he was upset about it actually. He considered it grotesque to do something like that.
Why grotesque?
Yeah because you see it would be much more logical to cultivate wheat in your fields instead of cultivating strawberries there which nobody can afford in Egypt anyway…
At the time that you were there, well both the decade before that but during the time that you went to Egypt there was a very heavy crack down from the Egyptian Government on Islamic groups…
Was that something you talked about at all?
I only remember that we, I think we had a talk on that of which I do not remember many details. It was a very short [conversation] but apparently Mohamed had also talked before that with Volker Hauth about this problem while this thing was going on, and both Mohamed and Volker Hauth were very critical actually about this, because it was very rude military action they were taking. They were really storming different parts of the Cairo city in order to fight different extremist groups, which was a sort sort of street war going on… a crack down. There was lots of troops being involved and I mean this is something you can only find scary when this… and he was also critical of that naturally because I mean he was though in favour of extremist Islamic groups but he was pretty much against such a state action against people who are apparently working in favour of the interests of the people living in the streets so it was always a social conflict … you see because it was these people in these extremist groups in these quarters they were working they were also like taking care of the social needs of the people which the State did not cope with.
And that's the reason he thought it was wrong of the government to crack down on them because they were providing social services?
Yeah because they would not replace these services by anything, by any other services so they would just crack down on the organisations and that's it.
Did he strike you as a passionate person?
Well he was in a way yeah, he was passionate but at the same time he was very, he was calm so he was a serious and calm person but when he got upset about something he became passionate.
What made him most passionate?
Well at that time I remember there were two things made him passionate. One was actually the ongoing war in Yugoslavia, the Bosnian War especially which he considered a war actually of one population against the Muslim part of the population and he didn't understand why there was no help by the so called International community to prevent this murdering from going on, and this he was always linking to the war going on or the process going on in which he was very critical of because he considered it selling out of the interests of the Palestinian people as what had happened in Oslo. And he also links it to what had happened during the second Gulf War when the International lines attacked Saddam Hussein and which he was not in favour of Saddam Hussein. That was very clear because he considered Saddam Hussein also a politician but he was not in favour of his people in any way but he would not understand, he was very very angry about the fact that the international community would gather in order to attack Saddam Hussein but they would not gather in order to prevent the Israelis attacking Palestinians. They would not gather for any other problem as the one in Yugoslavia he was very afraid that there was a very strong bias in these politics and that these politics were always in the interests actually of the US and he was very critical of that, and I mean he also criticised the UN of being a sort of organisation which would always at the end of the day would only do what the US would ask for and not, never do anything against the US or against Israel.
When you said there were two things, was that the second thing?
Well the one thing was the US influence actually in the Middle East, the other thing was the Yugoslavian civil war and these were very hot topics he'd get upset about.
Did you think of him as a particularly religious person?
He was very religious as many others are in Cairo so he was particularly religious in terms of people I know and also of friends I use to have later on in Cairo though I had some more actually who were also as religious but not… in another way then so he was, he was very religious. He prayed five times a day and he used to listen to on the radio or on the cassette and but that was actually something very normal. I met many other people who were very similar to him then … then I met him in '94 he wasn't as religious as he had become in summer '95 already as far as I can observe it looking back.
What you felt he had changed just in that period of time he'd become more religious?
Yeah it had become more obvious, he would more show it towards the outside that he was religious.
How could you see that?
I mean firstly he had grown his beard by these days actually which later he apparently shaved again but as he came back he had grown a beard which we are more or less supposed to do …because you're not allowed to shave. He kept this beard for some months later on which is also quite, quite usual for these people to do and well he was so in this course, in how he talked about… religion to me, but this might not have been that he had become more religious, but maybe we just got to know each other better. So he started to talk with me more confidently on these matters actually and we had several discussions on religion because he had a very very conservative approach to Islam which is not unusual I mean considering what you are teached in the State school system in Egypt and he was always very shocked when… I was interested in Islam as one of many different cultures existing on the planet and I was also trying to compare phenomena in one religion and the other and he was always upset at certain things, which words I used actually which were not appropriate in the proper Islamic diction so I was not allowed to say it this way because then it would be wronged. It would be sinned if it would be this way. It was for instance when I said that it is interesting that you have ways of speaking, uttering only texts which if you look at [ceremonies like] in the Catholic Church when you have this way of pronouncing in a certain melody, and you have it in Judaism and prayer and you have it also in other religions and you have it in Islam… and when you read Koran you have a certain… I mean the way you read Koran, which is something like singing. Well I made the mistake to say singing and then he got really upset and because naturally singing is not allowed in his interpretation of… because music's something sinful in order to distract people from the right path and so …
So when you …
Singing would have been a sin already and you can't sing Koran and it was these things we were discussing and for him I was a sort of person he could confront because I was a sort of example …because I was a European, a German who had studied Middle Eastern studies and Islamic studies and so I was for him an example of somebody who approached another culture but did not really understand what was going on, because I said it in the wrong way and he always felt the urge to explain it how it was to be understood so I could understand his point of view but still scientifically it was not mine you see and so we never found a common ground on these.
Do you think that he resented the way that western culture for the most part does not understand Islam?
Yeah I mean that was one of his basic problems I think and that made things also very difficult for him in the long run to live in Hamburg because as religious and conservative in his religion as he was, it was difficult for him to communicate to other people who would not know enough actually about these issues and so there was a lack of of exchange I think and so he necessarily had to become more secluded on these issues I think when living in Hamburg and I think he was suffering from this because he felt really alienated…from his surrounding.
And do you think in a way, do you think he resented it and felt that the West doesn't make the effort to understand?
I mean he was very explicit about that, I mean they deliberately did not want to understand. That was his interpretation rather because it they had a certain interest, when there was a interest in the Middle East it was of political or financial interest and it was not about an equal or balanced exchange, so it was something like knowledge in order to gain power not knowledge in order to understand which was pretty close to imperial studies…. I mean, he was aware of this but he being very conservative and also a sort of essentialist from his side. This is what I was criticising on him because I realised that he was sometimes taking the constructs which were actually constructed by, for instance, Orientalists and was now saying that this was typical Islam whereas in the meantime it was much more critically viewed already in within scholarly approaches to Islamic studies because they had found out actually that … I mean it was only [the] picture they had constructed, and [they] had not considered all the different aspects that were there, so I was critical about his approach that he had this sort of moralistic approach to Islam. So Islam for him was one thing and not something with many different opportunities and options to act and to create culture.
What particular aspects of conservative Islam stood out for you in terms of that critique that you're saying you had of…
Well I mean for instance when we come back to the urban planning thing he was … of the idea of an Islamic city and also of an Islamic house which is a construct of Orientalists from the 19th and 20th century and he considered actually the ideal Islamic city to have things like like narrow dead end roads that have court yard houses and all this which you might find in one city, not find in another. You might even find it in all Islamic cities so you see if the question, if it's really Islamic or if it is a result of some much more complex cultural historical development.
But he wanted cities to be this idea of Islamic?
Yeah this was the idea of Islam and he even would have favoured to recreate these spaces so he was also in favour of these attempts in Saudi Arabia to build Islamic cities where they would have modern architecture but with courtyards and dead end roads so they would build new Islamic cities, which structurally and socially, naturally were not Islamic cities as old because Islamic cities were much more self organising then central so it was odd to do it this way.
And structurally now, it would be very difficult to achieve and not particularly good to live in.
Exactly I mean this for him was a task that could be solved by architects and by urban planners so naturally he knew that there were problems about this but it was something he was eager to work on. I mean this was one of his interests because he considered this city more appropriate for the people and for their daily life culture to live in.
Was there anything about your lifestyle that offended him?
No I mean he was he was very tolerant of this because he accepted that I was not an Egyptian nor a Muslim so I wasn't and he had nothing to complain about in general because in Egypt otherwise I behaved, I adopted to manners so there was no strong conflict actually. There were no proper critics actually of my behaviour.
Did you… I wasn't suggesting you'd done anything in particular by the way. There was nothing I was trying to suggest there but did you meet his family at all?
I think I met his family once because his father came to fetch us from the airport when we arrived but that's it. I didn't see them later on and Mohamed was living at his father's, at his family's place actually in Cairo and Volker Hauth and we had rented a flat in another part of Cairo so we just met during the day and the evenings for work but not …
So did you form any idea about their relationship or…
Within the family you mean? No I mean it appeared to be very unusual family structure… I mean he had left the family because he went to Germany so I think he wasn't that much any more like only the son of the family but he had become more independent by the time when he came back and lived with the family but I don't know any details about how this created problems or how the father's attitude was towards the son. I don't know.
In terms of his life what made him appear to you a conservative?
I mean he would follow all the duties that he had to follow as a believing Muslim concerning daily lives. He went to pray. He didn't drink alcohol and he wouldn't mess with women and I also realised that he was even criticising women … who were veiled for not wearing it properly because they wear it in a way that made them more beautiful instead of protecting them from male's eyes so he was, that was very conservative. This is where you could sense it especially in these sorts of criticisms he was saying about other people.
You were just saying those areas in which you felt that Mohamed was sort of obviously to you conservative and you were saying that sometimes it was about the way the women wore the Hijab. Was that when you were in Cairo?
We were in Cairo yes. I mean what would happen was, he would see women wearing a Hijab, and Volker Hauth and me for instance we would realise that it's looking good actually how they, how they do it. It's nice actually. It makes them beautiful. Then he was like saying yes, or he would criticise them because he was saying they would not wear the Hijab probably because they would choose certain colours which were too chic and they would like wear it or wind it in a way around their head that it would maybe make them even more attractive and so that was not the way it was supposed to be; or he would sometimes even say for himself. I mean not generally would he walk through the streets and point to people saying they wore the Hijab the wrong way but it was just close to the topic we were just talking about it was, he'd mention it or refer to it but …
So did he ever show any interest in women when you knew him?
I'm not informed about this thing anyway so I mean apparently there was a story that had been going on the year before, because sometimes Volker Hauth and then Mohamed were referring to it, talking about it but I have no idea, no details actually about it so.
This might be an inappropriate question but did you ever tease him about when he would say look, women shouldn't do that. Did you ever tease him and say, oh don't be such a conservative?
Well yeah, I mean naturally I would say like comments… exaggerate I mean they wear it as they want I mean as long as they are following the rules and he wouldn't agree…
Did you ever go to the engineer's syndicate?
Yeah. Sure because we had to meet some people there. I don't remember the names anymore.
Did you get a sense of the politics that were around?
Well I mean we talked about these politics naturally because the engineering syndicate was one of those that was increasingly being influenced by fundamentalist movements, I mean it was not only the engineer's one but several different ones as well were one of the political instruments the conservative or fundamentalists Muslims were using in order to increase their influence on state politics or on municipality because it was an organisation that was rather basic democratic, so people could bring people into places and pose where they wanted to be and it was not centrally controlled, but there was as far as I remember lots of critics about these processes going on by that time. There were people that were very critical about this change of politics within the syndicate because there were actually also many other people, engineers within the syndicates who did not like the syndicate to be instrumentalised for such a political direction.
And what did Mohamed think about it?
Oh no Mohamed was in favour of this idea. I mean in favour of this change.
The increasing Islamisation of the syndicate?
Yeah he was in favour of that because he was in favour of having a larger, a better lobby for Islamic social ideas and these things, so for him this was one of the necessary and important means to achieve this goal.
So do you think they were an important influence in terms of his developing ideas…The political ideas that were focused in the syndicate?
Well I'm not sure you know that he was linked up to the syndicate in a closer way because he had studied and then he left Egypt so generally you only get in contact with the syndicate after you have finished studies, and you start working and since he hadn't worked at least not for a long time there was probably no real possibility for the syndicate influencing his views. He might still have received or read something about them, because it was always in the newspapers because there was this discussion going on, on this process and so there were comments and interviews with people who were in favour of this and who were discussing the ideas actually that were behind it, so he knew what it was about and actually he was, he thinking about this and so there might have been influence, because he read about it and heard about it, but no direct personal influence of certain people within the syndicate I don't…
Do you remember going, do you remember any conversations or meeting any people who were from that Islamic group when you went? Do you remember what was talked about or anything about going to …
No there was, there was nothing from this. I mean and all the organisations or planning offices we went to h had no link to such an approach so I never observed that kind of conversation.
When you went back to Hamburg after the trip to Cairo did you keep in touch?
Well we kept in touch for a while because we still had to finalise our research results so I mean I stayed longer in Egypt, then I stayed for six months, even more so I came back only in early Spring '96 to Germany and we met up in Hamburg then for a weekend in order to discuss what we had already written and to coordinate what still had to be written and afterwards I only had for a certain while indirect contact because Volker Hauth was sometimes telling me about what Mohamed was doing but also Volker Hauth lost contact at that time to Mohamed. So I had contact with Mohamed after Spring of '96.
Did Volker Hauth tell you about how he was getting on or whether or not he seemed to be getting more …
No he remarked one time that he was now working for a company in Hamburg and that he was still studying and working … and these things you know. Volker Hauth didn't see him much either anymore so … even Volker Hauth couldn't tell me about him.
And do you think that was a sign of anything the fact that not even Volker Hauth was seeing him anymore or…
No I didn't take it as a sign no. I mean I don't know. I mean by then I naturally didn't take it for any sign when I mean it was just… I mean I couldn't be a good friend of his because we simply didn't find lots of common ground. So I mean I found him a nice person and when we met I mean I could deal with him and it was OK and I also enjoyed it but a as I was not living in Hamburg I mean I didn't think about continuing a long term friendship.
And not enough common ground anyway?
Yeah.
Because…
Well because we had such different ideas about aspects of religion and culture so … that was actually made it difficult but politically I mean we sometimes shared the same ideas so it was… and he being critical of certain political processes in Egypt and the Middle East and it was like we were disagreeing on some and then agreeing on some so it was …
Did he ever talk to you about what he wanted to be? What he wanted to go on and become?
Yeah naturally, I mean he wanted to work as an architect and city planner in Cairo and he was very serious about it and hoped actually to be able to improve the situation and to find a place in the system where he would be able to influence the situation. Which naturally is not easy if you look at the structures which are pretty much controlled by …nepotism and so …
Did he feel that? That it would be hard?
Yeah I mean we talked about this problem also during our stay in Cairo. I mean he was aware of it before, and he got even more aware of it when we were there again and so I think in a way he was still hopeful. He still wished and hoped that he might find such work in Cairo but he was sceptical about the possibility of really changing things in Egypt and finding good and sensible work.
Because of…
Well because if you are critical of certain persons or certain political circumstances, if you don't know this and that person you will never get this sort of job that's why.
It's an obvious question but I want to ask I mean what did you feel when you opened the newspaper and saw his name.
I certainly wouldn't believe it. I mean I saw his picture in the newspaper. This is actually how it started, yes so we had this newspaper on our table and I looked at it. It was early in the evening and I seen this photo of a person on the title page and I was stunned because I thought, I know this person so I looked at it closely, it really looked like Mohamed El-Amir so I looked under the photo what was written there and it said it was a person Mohamed Atta who was supposed to have been the pilot of the first plane to crash into the World Trade Centre but there was no more information about this, and I didn't believe that it was him. I just thought maybe they made a mistake and they got this photo from somewhere or they took him for another person who apparently was linked to it or so I was looking for different explanations for how come this person I knew and which I would never expected to do such a thing could now be linked to this attack.
What happened then was that an hour later I got a phone call from Volker Hauth in Hamburg who had found out my telephone number via my parents and because we hadn't been in contact anymore since 98; and the moment that he called me I already knew what it was about because I mean there could be only one reason why Volker Hauth would now call me, and then I tried to find out when he was telling me that he had already contacted the police because he knew the person but he was also convinced that it couldn't have been him actually. He wanted to be in contact with the police in order to deliver proof that Mohamed is not the sort of person who would do a suicide attack and such a murder, and well this is how it started and I mean it took me quite a while because I was still also very sceptical about the whole idea of you know only Arab names listed as suspects actually…it was too outspoken.
The reaction was too outspokenly anti-Arab from the beginning. I mean from everything you would observe from the outside, you would not have the inside information and know the signs were clear enough, but this was also the reaction which was going around here. Maybe funny to say that everybody, all of my friends here they all, even people in the street I mean they were, many of them were really shocked, they wouldn't believe what was going on. There was only very few people who were like saying, I mean they hit the Pentagon and…very scared of what would happened afterwards because nobody knew actually who did it and then when the question, the question was obvious who did it and they all said it couldn't have been Arabs, never; because they wouldn't have the financial means, they wouldn't have the skills and…People wouldn't just believe that this was done by Arabs. Everybody hoped it was not the Arabs …because it would just make the situation worse and they all hoped, there were all these ideas that it was the Japanese Red Army who did it as a revenge for Pearl Harbour attack and these so everybody was constructing different solutions. All that it has been Osama who was behind it because I mean who would profit from this at all, and so people [found it very difficult] to believe what had been going on there.
And for you?
For me it was similar in a way, although I mean everything is speculation. We simply do not know what happened though, and from what happened then and how quickly actually research was focused on a certain group of Arab passengers in the plane I also found, I had this sense that there was interest behind it actually to focus on these sort of people and there was at least from what you observed from the press you had the, you got the impression that everybody was hoping in the US that it was the Arabs or the Muslims; whereas I and many other people here that would say that maybe it was an inner American thing because we all thought of Oklahoma I mean you know one of the biggest bombing was in the US was done by a US citizen and he had nothing to do with Islam so that was one of the very probable solutions that anybody had for the question like who was it? And then it was just like following what was going on and I started having these phone calls from journalists from places all over the world but …
What do you think now though? I mean have you in a sense come to terms with the fact that maybe the Mohamed that you knew did fly this plane?
Well I think it's difficult to really come to terms with it because the Mohamed I knew would not have done it so he must have changed a lot afterwards and I have no idea because I had no contact with him, what happened to him and when exactly and …
Do you think about that? What must have happened?
Yeah, naturally I think about it but I can't know. I mean I can't figure it out although from how I knew him, you know the only thing that I believe would have made him do such a thing would have been political reasons and not religious, because from a religious stand he was a very humanist person but he got really upset and extreme in his judgments when it came to politics and so I think it must have been something political rather, and maybe I think Robert Fisk actually he wrote an article these days in which he linked up and he made a very good remark which was that after Mohamed apparently wrote this testament of his, his last will was apparently written in April '96, exactly the month of the massacre when the Israelis bombed the UN Refugee camp in Southern Lebanon and several hundred civilians had died and there was no big published negative response to it. I mean Israel was like … don't do this again but nothing more happened. You can understand somebody being upset about this you know there might be a link really because…
The timing is such that… you believe there could have been a link. No one can prove it but…
The timing is such.
But you believe there could have been a link.
We can't prove it now anymore, because I mean who would tell us.
What did you think when you read the will?
Well I didn't read the will completely, but I found it odd. I mean I didn't understand it really. I mean some of the things were the usual and others were really a little bit weird but I do not know the details.
It just seemed strange to write it so early…
That is what surprised me you see. I mean it was when he wrote it in Spring 96, because that was still the time when I knew him or at least when I just had got out of contact with him and by that time you know he didn't appear to me as such a person who might feel the urge to write his last Will and this sort of last Will …I would have thought the thing to take much more time, to have been taken place later, so I was really surprised when they said that the last Will was written in '96.
As far as you know, was he ever a member of any Islamic Group?
Oh I have no idea. I don't know. I can't say. I mean he never talked about being a member of a group and I didn't observe him meeting people or going to the same places, or there was no hint of this actually. I mean he had like this this naturally this ex pat group in Hamburg he was, he was praying with which is a very normal thing for Muslim ex pats living in other countries because they have to join to pray, so I mean … has to be has to be done in a group and not alone, so this is why it is necessary for them to form a group to do it actually.
Was there ever anything about the decadence that there is in a city like Hamburg that you felt Mohamed ever expressed to you, sort of offended by the decadence of the West as exhibited in Hamburg or anywhere?
No I don't remember that he referred directly to such a thing. I mean it was rather indirectly of how he would expect a proper Muslim women to behave that maybe you could sense the critic towards, towards western ways of dressing maybe, of behaviour which he even would have, like in Egypt against women who were not wearing Hijab or wearing or carrying clothes like jeans or t-shirts - this was actually what he was referring to. I mean I only spent one weekend in Hamburg when I met him so I think because his critics were often not very much context related so he would not tell us about his critics, about life in Hamburg when we were in anther place. There was nothing like that. He maybe did but just didn't mention it to me.
So you don't remember times when he would talk an American movie or an American style of food?
No, no no there was nothing like that actually. I mean it was, he was not that anti whatever western in that way I mean … it was rather a thing of live and let live approach maybe that was behind it.
One of the extraordinary things about all of them was that they were able to do this, plan this for a number of years… Do you think he had that capacity to be able to lead a separate life?
Yeah I mean on the one hand… I mean there are like two questions. I considered him able to organise and to plan such a thing. I mean not because it is a crime but because he was good at organising and he was also a person who could lead other people so he could be a leader type of guy and take decisions and be [good] in organising things. The second part of the question is, could he do this in a secret part of life, which apparently he did. I don't… so he was able to do it, which you couldn't know before exactly because he was able to do it so…
How does that make you feel about you, you knew him.
Yeah I mean I ask myself, naturally if he was already this sort of person who would have done this, when I knew him or not but as far as I knew him then, he was not the kind of person, so this is why I say there should have been this change going on with him but it was surprisingly early as you said, that he already wrote this last Will in early '96; so there I naturally question myself, if he was already thinking about this things or planning something already or meeting people early on, but then he managed to do this without anybody of us remarking and it leads me to the question like how far can you know a person at all? It's if you think you know him already and you can judge in general his his kind of personality but I never had the impression by that time that he had a certain path or second or secret life.
At the other end naturally I didn't grasp the whole of his life which is very normal because I was new to the Egyptian contacts then; I mean there were many things strange to me or things that I had to get to know or understand and to learn what they meant and so I'm probably the wrong person to ask if he had a sort of life which I would not know about or understand. I mean this question could only be answered by a person from his surroundings, from his Egyptian surroundings, which would know how people would act in a normal way. Or if he had something which was conspicuous or…
But it does make you ask yourself how well can you ever know somebody?
Yeah actually it's not that I'm really suffering from this question because I still think that Mohamed … that I had understood or known him quite well or to an extent so I think I mean it's probably that he changed later on.
do you feel that in some ways you can understand, or speculate about the unhappiness that must have led someone to the despairing view of the world that you'd have to do something like that?
Well I don't think it was in isolation, if he was that isolated. I think I mean he was naturally able to communicate with people on a more daily level because he was working in this company in Hamburg and it was not that he was completely isolating himself there. So he was also doing things on his own and he was going to pray and he would not enter into religious discussions with people because naturally he would feel completely alone because he would be the only person having this [sort] of idea about his religion, and generally it's difficult to discuss issues of especially Islam and Islamic religion in Germany for instance or any western country because there are so many prejudices and before you can start to make people really understand what it is about, you're running into so many prejudices and people just won't stop actually believing the prejudices more than what you say.
So it is a very very difficult situation and it gets even more difficult when you are a religious person and I think this is why he surely wouldn't really talk about religion, which was apparently an important part of his life. He had a very 'disconservative' stand which was growing apparently more extreme, actually was isolating this, and he might have looked for other people he could share something with, but still, this way of isolation will not give a reason at least which I can understand, [why he would take such an action]. That would rather facilitate the impossibilities of planning it, but it would not be the reason for it.
Basically it speaks of frustrated rage.
Yes it's frustrated rage and frustration coming from very different origins, for very different reasons actually and I mean this is the only explanation I have for this. And as I said I could sense this sort of frustration and rage especially in in his political critics about what was going on in the world especially in the bias politics against Muslims, as he would have regarded it. We had these discussions also I remember once, that we talked about the role of the UN in the Iraq conflict and in Czechoslovakia and he was very [ ] in his criticism against the UN that it was outspokenly anti Islamic… interesting actually that somebody would consider the UN politics outspoken and anti Islamic, I tried to make him understand that it might appear, the politics might appear anti Islamic because they are guided by other interests, by countries which are not Islamic and so they just follow their interests and that the way to see it as something outspokenly anti Islamic is just the effect of somebody who was victimised by it and who feels that this is directed against him but it's just directed against nobody in particular. It's just in favour of their own interests but not against somebody and so I tried to convince him that he was taking actually the Islamic aspect as too important in this political game because it was not anti Islamic politics but it was if at all a pro American or pro capitalist country politic.
Could he see that?
Then third world countries, which in this part of the world happen to be Muslim countries fall victim too and this is the thing. I mean but no he didn't really see that.
He couldn't, didn't want to, couldn't...
Well I mean he saw my point and he was thinking about it, but he still was believing that there was something in what he had said or that there was actually these anti Islamic motives behind certain politics of the UN and the US.
That the UN was specifically anti Islamic?
Yeah. Not in everything they did but they were doing things which apparently were anti Islamic.
Rather than just pro western you mean?
Yeah, but this brings me to another sort of what I observed in the last weeks because in everything you could read in the newspapers and many things that you would hear on the radio would always see people looking for the motivations of what Mohamed did in his religion and everybody was trying to pin it down on the fact that they were Muslims doing this and I think this is completely off the track because these people did not do this because they were Muslims. The way probably they argued it or they were defending their motivations they were using, they were doing it within the Muslin discourse because this is the context they are referring to but the motivations, the reasons for it are not the religion is nothing which forces them to do something like this. To the contrary you would find the majority saying you know, you are forbidden to do this because they were innocent people killed and this is something which his not allowed especially from the [Islamic] point of view so it is political actually, in that it's political action and political motivation behind it and this can not be used to the fact you know that Islam has something about it which makes somebody a killer in a certain point of time; but it is rather like that world political structure has something about it which makes some people become killers at a certain point of time out of frustration. I think this is much more the point we have to look for if you ask why is a person like Mohamed Atta did something like this.
Volker Hauth Interview
Hamburg, Thursday 18 October, 2001
source: Four Corners, Monday 12 November, 2001 ABC TV
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/atta/interviews/hauth.htm
Liz Jackson interviews Volker Hauth, who knew Atta well during the years he studied in Hamburg, and accompanied him on several trips to the Middle East.
…Now the government tried to convert this very lively road to a pedestrian zone and they tried to push out the local population. They were obliged to live in one of the new cities which are built in Egypt. Our opinion was that these plannings were not the right way to take care of the specific structure you may find in the inner city of Cairo but it was quite difficult to tell this opinion openly.
Mohamed told us it may cause problems for him if we showed our professional opinions to open cause he wanted to, after studying in Germany, he wanted to return to Egypt and he wanted to work in Egypt and in Arabia. He always was, that was my impression, after what he said, he was always in danger of being criminalised. He was member of the syndicate of the engineers and as he told me, I asked him about fundamentalism and Islamism and he told me about the Muslim Brotherhood that many members of the syndicate of advocates and of engineers are members of the Muslim Brotherhoods.
He was no member of the brotherhood but by this I got the impression that the members of the brotherhood do not stand aside of the society they are more part of the intelligency of the population and Egyptian President or the Egyptian government tried to give the impression that all members of the Muslim Brotherhood are criminals and are people of less education or of mean education and like Mohamed Atta how he called Mohamed Al-Amir told me the opposite was real, was true…
And when you say he was concerned that he would be criminalised, why was that?
He told me about the daily practice of the government to criminalize people of a said opinion. Egyptian and especially the Egyptian President, Mubarak tries to give the impression that Egyptian is a democracy, is a free democratic country in the western sense of democracy and freedom but Mohamed told me that it was not possible to give or to tell open oppositional opinion. Most governors or most presidents of Egypt have belonged to the army before and from my own experience in the army, I have the impression people coming from the army have a look of black and white. There is nothing between. You have friends or you have enemies and in Egypt you either may have the same opinion like the government or you are an enemy of the government. The real opposition like you have in the democracies of the western states or in the western world, you can't find in Egypt. There is no real opposition and…I did not get the impression that these are true elections in a democratic sense.
Was Mohamed a member of the engineer's syndicate?
Yes, he was a member of the engineer syndicate. In Germany I am a member of the engineer's syndicate also. It's necessary to be allowed to work as architect, you have to be a member of the syndicate, even also in Germany like in Egypt. But he told me he was no member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
But he told you that he thought that there were particular problems for the Muslim Brotherhood in the syndicate or that they were an important part of the syndicate…
No. Members of the syndicate, or many members of the syndicates were members of the brotherhoods and most seemed from the opposite, most members Muslim Brotherhood were members of the syndicate of lawyers or advocates and engineers.
Did he talk to you about the crackdown that there was on the Islamists and particularly on the Muslim brotherhoods in those syndicates?
The manner, the Egyptian government used the expression fundamentalist, Mohamed told me was very superficial and schematic attempt to criminalise all people with opposite opinions.
Did he say that particularly within the Engineer's Syndicate, within the profession that he wanted to work?
No, no. This attempt to criminalize people was not concentrated on one of the syndicates, he told me it was a general problem of the Egyptian government to push away all people with opposite opinions and Mohamed was a very well educated person and he was a religious person and both people with religious orientation and people with a very high education all around the world may have opposite opinions than the government of the country they live in and by this he was in danger of being criminalised. Only by having a different opinion. This was my impression of what Mohamed told me.
And when you say a religious person, what do you mean?
I did not have the impression of being fanatic but it was a very strict religious orientation. He had his prayer five times a day and he practiced Ramadan. I don't know if he had taken part at the Haj, if he travelled to Mecca, he didn't tell me. But I didn't get the impression of being fanatic. He was very strict but not fanatic. You may know Muslims do not have any sense of humour concerning religion in the Christian religion, there is a special sense of humour concerning religion if you know Monte Python or attempts like this to have a new view on religion, in the Islamic religion, this is not possible.
Do you think he did have a sense of humour generally?
He had a sense of humour, yes we joked about governments, the Syrian government and we travelled together to Syria a year before and we joked about this. It was possible to laugh about, especially about politics.
Can you remember the first time that you met Mohamed?
Yes we met in a seminar about planning and building in development countries at the University and Mohamed was very interesting person for me cause I've been in Egypt and Palestine two times before and this was a good opportunity to get more informations and to get better impressions of this country I have travelled before. We began to work together at the end of 1994 and we prepared a journey to Syria to Aleppo where we studied life and structure of the old city of Aleppo. A very characteristic old city. It's comparable only with the old city of Cairo and these were the main interest of Mohamed, the traditional structure and the daily life, the mixture of traditional structure and actual daily life in these old Islamic inner cities of Aleppo and of Cairo because he was interested in the specific structure of these old cities. In former times, there was no separation of political and religious life in Arabia. In the western world, we have the separation of the political life on the one side and the religion on the other side and in former times, also in Europe, but in former times in Arabia, this was some kind of unity, Mohamed told me and these old cities and these Islamic old cities you get a very lively impression how the daily life may have been from the time. This was the main interest of Mohamed. He studied the German language with very much discipline and he spoke very fine or his knowledge of German language was excellent. I do not remember any specific hobbies but I think to have hobbies is a special quality of western life and it's a special quality of rich and handsome western life. In Arabian countries young people meet but do not have time and they do not have money for practicing hobbies like you have in the western world. The daily life is much more working or meeting friends and sitting together. It's not playing tennis or playing golf. That's part of the life of the so-called fat cats in the Egyptian population or young population you have different groups and the group with the highest income, are the so-called fat cats, these are families with narrow relations to the government. It's astonishing that people or persons belonging to the government in Egypt are also leaders or managers of national companies.
What did Mohamed feel about what you're calling the fat cats?
He told me about different groups of the population of Egypt beginning with the Infitah, Infitah means the opening of the Egyptian politics, to the western world. President Sadat began with this policy to open the economy to the western world and in this time a few families, especially families or clans increased their income and these families with the close contacts to the government of the so-called fat cats income of these families is absolutely incomparable to the income of, for example, of academics. If you know that in that a teacher of a high school earns about 350 German marks a month that are about 175 US dollars and other persons in Egypt may afford new Mercedes cars, there's a gap between the academic world and the world of the persons working in the industry or leading managing companies… the income of the poor people is incomparable maybe 50 dollar dollars a month or 100 dollars a month.
What did Mohamed feel or say to you about that gap between the rich and the poor?
He was not happy about the injust or unfair way of living and of distribution of a wellness and income. His idea was to have income for anybody to have the opportunity to survive with health and good education but many are a big part of the Egyptian population can't take part in the daily life of the better off and many people do not have the opportunity to give a good o education to their children. Many children have to work because they do not earn enough money and the interest of Mohamed and his professional work was to increase the circumstances of the poor people. This was my impression…. His first study was architecture and for architects all around the world, it's possible to make much money if you work for the better off but architecture is not only a technical science, it's also a social science and for this Mohamed continued his first study with studying urbanism and town planning because of his interest of social life.
Living here in Hamburg, he obviously experienced a western style of living, saw it directly. Did he ever talk to you about how he felt about a more western style of living, what he thought about that?
I do not remember exactly what he told me. He didn't take part in many affairs of the western world. He made some sports but most of the time he studied and he was in contact with Arabian friends. It was a strange world for him, a strange language. Strange daily life for a religious orientated person. Most of Germans are not used to pray and daily… I don't think he had many relationships to the German or to the western world. He studied the western world and he studied the policy, the democratic practices.
Do you think anything that the western world had to offer or has to offer appealed to him?
Yes I get the impression that he was interested in the German way. I don't know about his opinions of the American life, but that he was interested in the German way, the German attempt to spread or to distribute prosperity or to reach prosperity for all members of the community. For all parts of the population. That's an old principle… of the Muslim world that anybody may take part in the daily life that anybody has enough to survive that anybody has the opportunity to get educated. It's an idea of the Muslim or of the Islamic world.
I guess I also meant, did anything of the more hedonistic things that the western world has to offer appeal to him?
He was not interested in this I think. He was not interested in cars or in, no I don't remember this…
I mean movies, nightclubs
No, nothing at all.
Girls? Any of the things that the west, the freedoms that, a personal lifestyle that the west offers attractive.
I think freedom and the possibility to tell your opinion openly was of great interest for him or it was of big interest for him but all these good of the western world like you told me cars, girls, motor cycles, or things like that, he was not interested in.
Television, movies?
I don't know if he had a TV set. No I don't think so and I don't remember him going to the movie.
Ever?
Can't remember.
Music?
We spoke about music cause I'm interested in music and I like playing music and he told me for Muslims it is not allowed to listen to music or to enjoy music in the way people from the western world enjoy music because of the impact of music. If you have a look to the young people dancing, very loud music, the impact is comparable to the impact of drugs and this is not allowed to Muslims.
And what did he think that that music might make them do or feel?
It may have the impact of a sedative or the opposite impact of … stimulants and the stimulation of Muslim or other the root and the base of the stimulation of the Muslim is the belief.
It sounds such a strict way to live.
Yes. He lived in a much more strict way than person from the western world, that's right. But that doesn't mean that he couldn't enjoy anything. He enjoyed sweets or he enjoyed laughing, walking around meeting friends, meeting, being in company with friends. That's one of the joys of Arabian people. Arabs do not like to be alone like western people.
Did you meet many of his friends here?
We met some of his friends on the street and he told me this is so and so and we shook hands and changed some words but I do not remember or any of his friends. Also in Egypt we met some friends on the street but we did not get in close contact with his friends.
Did you feel close to him?
Yes.
What do you think was the bond, what was it that made you feel close to him?
My religious orientation is not as strict as his orientation, his religious orientation was but I think the interest in religious ideas, my interest in religious ideas was some kind of bridge to his religious opinions and to his religious practice. People with strict religious practices and religious orientation, a traditional religious orientation is quite difficult to get in contact with people who do not have an idea of religion and many of the other students did not have an idea of religion.
And that was a bond between you?
Yes. I think so.
How long did you know him for?
We met in 1993 and the last time I met him was about 1996 or 1997.
Can you remember the last time that you saw him?
We met in the street or in the bus, some kind like that and spoke only shortly. We hadn't seen for some month and I didn't get the impression of a change or something like that.
But what happened, how come you didn't see him again?
My study finished and in Germany when a student's work, they study and they work and the same time and in the later semesters if you're near to the diploma you do not go to the University daily….Some of the students go to the university only once a week or two weeks and then I change my flight, first I lived in Hamburg and then I changed to the northern part of Hamburg and by this we didn't meet like we met before.
Were you surprised that you had no contact at all? I am curious because you were close and he was still here till the year 2000… you seemed to have some sort of bond and good strong discussions about religion and politics so that's why I ask, it just seemed like, to suddenly end … perhaps you might have been a big loss for him in terms of someone that he could relate to.
Maybe. It was not a sudden loss….We worked together until 1996 but we worked not very closely. We had to write a report about the time in Cairo but we did not meet as often as before because we both had to work and by this our ways went aside…
Was there a period of time in which over a period of time, did you think that he changed in the kind of person he was from when you first met him?
When I first met him about 1993, he did not wear a beard, and in about 1995, end of 1994, suddenly he had a beard and I also have a beard and by this I asked him what about your beard and he told me all people wearing a beard in Egypt are thought to be fundamentalists and due to this in solidarity with all people criminalised in Egypt now. He wanted to wear a beard also. He didn't want to hide his personal opinions, religious people have a beard in Egypt and if you do not want to be criminalised or if you don't want to have problems, you can't your beard but Mohamed told me … he wanted to show his opinions freely, openly and he didn't want to hide his opinions. That was one of the qualities I liked and I didn't get the impression of Mohamed being a sleeper, a so-called sleeper. In the years I met and I knew him he was not, or he didn't act like a sleeper. He showed his opinions openly, we spoke about politics, we spoke about the western world. He showed his scepticism about the western world, we spoke about Israel and the Israel politics and also here he showed openly his scepticism and his critique and I did not get the impression of Mohamed trying to hide anything.
When you say his scepticism about the western world, what do you mean by that?
There was one example I don't remember the year exactly but once a western nation, I'm not sure if this was America or European nation, sent a ship with rubbish to Egypt and Mohamed told me he didn't like this. That the rich western nations exported their rubbish to the poor Arabian nations. This was one example of critique and I think the critique was just and fair. We spoke about the politics of Israel and the USA or the symbiotic relationship of Israel and the USA and he was very unhappy not to be allowed to visit Jerusalem. For a Muslim Jerusalem is one of the holy places and as Egypt he was not allowed to visit this holy place and he was quite unhappy about this cause I told him I have been there twice.
Did he feel strongly about the Palestinian issue?
I asked him about the problem, it was not him talking about it and he was not happy about the politics of Arafat he did not like the attempt to find a way or the attempts Arafat made cause he had the impression that Arafat gave away too much.
He thought Arafat compromised too much?
Yes. That was his impression, that's also my impression.
So he was in a sense more hardline than Arafat?
I won't call him a hardliner
I thought I might have used the wrong word. Do you think he was a person who liked a compromise?
Yes, that was one of his main qualities to find compromise, to communicate. I have got one image if the right door is closed, he tried to use the left door. There's no way on the right side, you have to take the left side to reach the target and I travelled with him in Syria and in Egypt and I got the impression that his capability of communicate with different people was extremely good.
At some point when he was in Hamburg, something must have happened, do you take that view and if so is there anything now that points to you about when that was?
Being asked of any or for any explanations of what happened in New York, and the first moment I thought of the visit of Ariel Sharon visiting the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. By this he threatened a holy place of the Islamic world and threatening or damaging a holy place is a sacrilege and it may have been answered by threatening and damaging the holy place of the western world and from the view of an Arab, from the view of a Muslim, the World Trade Centre in New York is a holy place for the western world and this may be or this may show an interrelationship and this visit of Ariel Sharon giving fire to the oil or burning the oil may have been the last drop, the water overflowing.
Did Mohamed ever talk to you about what he really wanted to do, like what were his dreams?
Yes he told me he wanted to work for an international organisation of corporation and development because in being member of an international organisation, he wouldn't have been in danger of being imprisoned, he wanted to work in Egypt, he wanted to work in Arabia as a planner, as an urbanist, but he wanted to be saved of being criminalised. And this was his dream to work in Egypt.
He had a real fear that he would be put in prison for his religious strengths?
No it was not the fear of being imprisoned but it was a fear not be allowed to say what he meant and for well educated person, it's some kind of torture not to be allowed to tell what your confessions are. You know about the so-called inner exodus, many persons living in a country with a very restrictive political systems, live in the so-called inner exodus, they don't tell what they think but they can't make him happy any day than Mohamed wanted to live in Egypt, he wanted to live in Arabia and he wanted to become happy. And not being allowed telling or showing the inner opinions, not having the opportunity to show the professional knowledge he had would be some kind of torture.
Did he think that he would ever be able to realise and do what he wanted to do, did he ever talk about his fear of not being able to realise and do what he wanted to do?
No he didn't tell this.
Being frustrated?
I got the impression of depression that I think that's a special quality of many academics or of the intelligentsia of Egypt.
When you say depression, what, what was it about to him that made you say that?
The problem of the academic world in Egypt and the problem of Mohamed was that in Egypt it causes problems to show your confessions, to show your knowledge, your professional knowledge openly. In Egypt I get the impression that many academic people or people of academic education are very depressed and in Egypt you have an exodus of academics. Many academics of Egypt would like to leave the country to work in other countries to have a job and to work concerning to their beliefs and to their knowledge and not always thinking of what hasn't the government told us and what have I tell now not to get in conflict with the government or the police.
So it was a general thing rather than a feeling that he was, was there anything about his manner that made you feel he was depressed, frustrated, angry?
I don't think it was special quality of or a symptom of Mohamed, it was a general problem of Egypt that people were not like that it causes problems to show knowledge and confessions of ….
Did you meet his family when you were there?
We met the father at the airport. He took us to the flat where my German colleague and I lived and we met two aunts in Kafir el-Sheikh where Mohamed comes from but I didn't meet the mother and the sister.
Some people have said to us that it was a very high achieving family and that his father had big expectations of Mohamed. Did you ever have that impression, did he ever talk to you about having in some sense to live up to his father's expectations?
No, we didn't talk about this. His father had different profession and professional prospective of advocates and architects or planners are incomparable.
I want to ask you about something, I'm sure you've been asked about it many times, in terms of any interest that he had in women, I understand there was one time when you were with him in Aleppo, can you tell us about that time?
No, I don't want to repeat this.
Because you don't think it's true or…?
No. It's of few words, it was lean mean, mean value. He wanted to have a family, I get the impression and he did not have a girlfriend, but he told me, I asked him about a girlfriend and he told me in Egypt his family and the family of a young lady, thought of starting a relation…but and I told him about a relationship, about being married and he told me it was not yet time to get married….His interest was to study and to finish his studies first and then to have a family. I get the impression he wanted to have a family.
And in the meantime he thought that having girlfriends was not appropriate?
No in Arabia the life of young people is totally different from the life of young persons or young people in the western world, it's not that the way like young men and young ladies or young women, the western world may meet in a café or stayed together for a night or so in Egypt it's more strict. You are not allowed to meet a girl you're not married with and the religious orientated families and by this Mohamed had no idea of having a girlfriend.
There was no idea of getting in contact with a young girl or a young lady in the western sense.
When it became more and more apparent that it was in fact Mohamed who had flown the plane into the World Trade Centre, what did you think must have happened to the Mohamed that you knew?
For a long time I couldn't imagine that Mohamed had taken part in this terroristic act and also now I didn't find a reason, an exact reason, you can't find any exact reason for what happened but there are no clear hints which may lead to this what happened. His personal bitterness and depression are no sufficient hints for this act. There are no hints or you may try to have an explanation but I couldn't find a sufficient explanation for what happened and for Mohamed taking part in this act even.
Did he ever talk to you about America?
Maybe, I couldn't remember a specific situation talking about Americans, he didn't show any fanaticism against America, his critique and his scepticism was orientated against the separation of the Egyptian population which means that the western style of living gets in contact or confrontates with the traditional way of living but that's an inner Egyptian problem or he gave the impression that he was interested in the Egyptian life, the daily life and the threatening of the traditional life by western ideas.
So you felt that in some sense the west was invading culturally invading or taking over the Islamic way of life?
Yes. That's daily life in Egypt.
Did he speak to you about that?
We spoke about that, yes. The industrial nations do not only export cars or tanks or things like that, they do not only export rubbish, they also export their way of living. It's quite opposite to the traditional way of living in an Islamic country or is in an Arab country.
And do you think Mohamed resented that?
Mohamed was not very happy of this cause the western kind of living and the traditional way of living, there is no co-existence, it's a confrontation in Egypt. If you tried to live in the traditional way you get problems. You get many points and you will be confrontated. If you built houses in the traditional way, you touch the interests of the industry who tries to sell the western products of modern building and you will find many examples of confrontation of the traditional way of living on the way side and the western way of living on the other side. And these are not only problems of religion, these are also problems of technique and problems of money. If you try to find solutions, therefore daily life, if you try to find cheap techniques for daily life of the bigger part of the population, you threaten the interest of companies, of western companies to sell expensive techniques, for example air condition or things like that.
And did he talk to you about things like that?
Yes we spoke about this because planning towns, planning houses means to discriminate between modern technique and old technique. You have to think about costs and the modern technique is much more expensive and many are a big part of the Egyptian population can't afford the western techniques and by this big part of the Egyptian population can't take part at the daily life.
What do you think when people just say anybody who did that must just be mad, must be a psychopath?
I think that's right. You can't find intellectual explanation for what happened. You can find an explanation for depression and you can find an explanation for bitterness and sadness but you can't find an intellectual explanation for this terroristic act, something in the mind must have changed totally that any intellectual thought has been switched off. That's my opinion.
So that must be what happened.
I think so. It's a psychological problem or individual psychological problem led to a very narrow view of the world. May have led to a very narrow view of the world which has come closer or which may have been focussed on an attempt to solve problems by such terroristic acts.
He never talked to you about people resorting to violence, he never discussed with you terrorism?
No, Mohamed was a very peaceful person searching for justice and I didn't ever get the impression that violence was a manner of or was a medium of reaching targets.
But he never referred to other acts, mean of say Palestinians suicide?
No, and by this I couldn't imagine that he took part this terroristic act.
