Hijackers’ ID Procurer Sentenced
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — An illegal immigrant who helped two of the Sept. 11 hijackers get illegal identification and falsely warned authorities of more attacks was sentenced Friday to 21 months in prison.
The misstatements--which the judge called bizarre--prompted alerts at the highest levels of government and added security precautions on the East Coast.
The illegal immigrant from El Salvador pleaded guilty in December to one count of document fraud, admitting he falsely certified that Hani Hanjour and Khalid Almihdhar, hijackers on the flight that crashed into the Pentagon, were Virginia residents. The hijackers paid him $100.
In the days immediately after the attacks, Luis Martinez-Flores lied to investigators, telling them he had conversations with Hanjour in which Hanjour discussed attacks on Federal Reserve banks, stadiums and other large buildings in Boston, Richmond, Va., and Atlanta.
It turns out that the only contact he had with the hijackers came on Aug. 1, when they approached him outside a 7-Eleven and asked him for help obtaining the ID cards.
Prosecutor John Morton said the government is confident Martinez-Flores had no knowledge of the hijackers’ plans.
It’s not clear why Martinez-Flores exaggerated his connections to the hijackers.
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