Tuesday, October 2, 2001

Two men held without bond for helping terrorists
By Pete Yost
Associated Press

WASHINGTON — A federal magistrate ordered two Virginia residents held without bond Monday pending hearings later this week on charges they helped some of the hijackers in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks obtain false identification documents.

U.S. Magistrate Barry Poretz ordered Luis Martinez-Flores, 28, of Falls Church, and Kenys Galicia, who works in Falls Church, detained following a brief hearing in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va. Alexandria and Falls Church are both suburbs of Washington.

Preliminary hearings for the two were set for Wednesday.

According to an FBI statement unsealed Monday, Martinez-Flores was charged Friday with falsely certifying that Hani Hanjour and Khalid Almihdhar lived at his Falls Church address. The certifications were on state registration forms needed by the two to obtain a Virginia ID card.

Galicia was accused by the FBI of assisting numerous people in obtaining false Virginia documents. The FBI said she admitted on Sept. 19 that she signed residency certification forms for two of the suspected hijackers, Abdulaziz Alomari and Ahmed Saleh Alghamdi.

Authorities say 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 was aboard United Airlines Flight 175, which hit the south tower.

Assistant U.S. Attorney John Morton said a confidential witness told authorities that Galicia on two occasions sold him 100 blank Virginia residency certification forms that she had notarized, charging him $300 each time.

Martinez-Flores’ name first appeared Sept. 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 four jetliners that crashed on Sept. 11.

Salvadoran national police director Mauricio Sandoval said last week that Martinez-Flores had helped the terrorists obtain false identification cards. Sandoval said Martinez-Flores may have moved around with the terrorists in New York, Boston or Florida.

But neither the FBI affidavit nor federal prosecutors made any mention of any such travels by Martinez-Flores.

In the affidavit, the FBI said Martinez-Flores was at a convenience store in northern Virginia on Aug. 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.