The First Three Indictments

By Harriet Barovick, Ellin Martens, Janice Min, Sora Song, Heather Won Tesoriero and Deirdre Van Dyk

Who will be the first person indicted for conspiracy in the Sept. 11 attacks? Most say it will be Zacarias Moussaoui, a French-Moroccan arrested for immigration violations in Minnesota last August after he sought lessons in piloting a commercial jetliner. But U.S. prosecutors are targeting two other suspects for early indictments. One is Mustafa Ahmad, also known as Shaykh Saiid, an Egyptian believed to have served as paymaster and field commander for the Sept. 11 attacks. Investigators have traced $100,000 from a bank account in Dubai controlled by Ahmad to Mohamed Atta, suspected of orchestrating the attacks. The other is Ramzi Binalshibh, pictured here, a Yemeni who once lived in Hamburg with Atta and who the FBI believes was the 20th hijacker, who was supposed to have been aboard United Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania. The whereabouts of Ahmad and Binalshibh, however, are unknown. U.S. authorities believe they may be hiding in one of the remaining al-Qaeda strongholds in Afghanistan. But even if they aren't, prosecutors want indictments on the record as soon as possible. If either turns up in another country, local police will then have the legal authority to detain him while the Justice Department builds a case for his extradition to the U.S.