MADRID, Spain — Spanish police believe suspected Sept. 11 suicide pilot Mohamed Atta met in Spain with other key leaders of the attack on the World Trade Center eight weeks before the hijackers flew U.S. airliners into the buildings, a newspaper said Sunday.
Atta met in or near the northeastern city of Tarragona on July 10 with Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, a Yemeni who's now the subject of a worldwide manhunt, and Marwan al-Shehhi, a cousin of Atta with whom he took flight lessons in Florida, El Pais said.
U.S. authorities believe Atta, an Egyptian, was aboard American Airlines Flight 11, which struck the north tower of the World Trade Center, and that Al-Shehhi, of the United Arab Emirates, was aboard United Airlines Flight 175, which struck the south tower 17 minutes later.
In the United States, the only person charged in the attack and the so-called 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui, is said to have received a $14,000 wire transfer from Bin al-Shibh in August.
Attorney General John Ashcroft has said that Atta, Al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah, a third key hijacker, were part of a terrorist cell in Hamburg.
