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Hearing set for pair who allegedly helped hijackersALEXANDRIA, Virginia (CNN) -- A federal court Monday ordered a Virginia man and a woman, suspected of unwittingly helping some suicide hijackers fraudulently obtain Virginia driver's licenses, held until preliminary hearings and detention hearings set for Wednesday. Luis Martinez-Flores, an immigrant from El Salvador, is charged with helping suspected Saudi Arabian hijackers Hani Hanjour and Khalid Almihdhar obtain driver's licenses on August 1. Six weeks later, authorities believe, Hanjour and Almihdhar hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 after it took off from Dulles International Airport and crashed the jetliner into the Pentagon. A court document says Martinez-Flores, 28, certified that Hanjour and Almihdhar lived at the same Falls Church, Virginia, address where Martinez-Flores once lived. The government claims Martinez-Flores has been in the U.S. illegally since 1994. The FBI says the suspect admits lending the two Saudi men his former address and signing documents vouching for their residency. Kenys Galicia, a legal secretary and notary, is charged with notarizing documents for suspected hijackers Abdul Aziz Alomari and Ahmed Saleh Alghamdi.
"They apparently had no idea they were dealing with terrorists," said a federal law enforcement official familiar with the case. U.S. authorities allege that Alomari was one of the hijackers aboard American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York. Alghamdi, they say, was aboard United Airlines Flight 175, which hit the south tower. Last week, sources told CNN that Martinez-Flores was cooperating with federal investigators who were looking at how some of the suspects in the hijackings obtained fake identification materials. Another man, Herbert Villalobos, has already been charged in federal court with "knowingly and unlawfully" producing an identification document, and aiding and abetting in the same. Martinez-Flores' name first appeared September 19 on a list of hijack suspects the FBI sent to banks looking for financial transactions. He was listed along with the 19 men believed to have hijacked the four jetliners. In the affidavit unsealed Monday, the FBI said Martinez-Flores was at a convenience store in northern Virginia August 1 looking for day labor work when Almihdhar and Hanjour drove up in a van looking for someone to sign Virginia Department of Motor Vehicle forms for them, The Associated Press reported. |
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