http://www.sanderhicks.com/hopsickerinterview.htmlINN WORLD REPORT
"News the Networks Won't Tell You"
Interview with Daniel Hopsicker
Conducted by Sander Hicks
Broadcast 6/11/04 on INN World Report,
Free Speech TV, Channel 9415, DiSHNetwork
http://innworldreport.nethttp://sanderhicks.comHICKS: We joined here today with Daniel Hopsicker. Daniel Hopsicker is one of the leading independent researchers, author of two books. Daniel, welcome to the program
HOPSICKER: Pleased to be here
HICKS: The new book is called Welcome to Terrorland, about Mohammad Atta and the 911 cover up in Florida. There is a lot to talk about here. You are unique because a lot of these 911 books are speculative. But you do did two years of independent research in Florida obviously putting yourself through a lot of risk and danger. We want to jump in and talk about Amanda Keller, Mohammad Atta's girlfriend and maybe go to a clip later, but before we do that give us the summary of what you've found in Florida.
HOPSICKER: What I found in Florida was that the government story about the terrorist conspiracy's activities before September 11th is not just an error, it s a lie. The time line is wrong. The FBI's timeline is wrong. Everything they are doing is designed to protect an operation that was under way in southwest Florida that trained, between 1999 and September 2001, literally hundreds of Arabs to fly. In other words, in 1998, there were two or three Arabs learning how to fly, by the end of ‘99 it was flying hundreds of them. So obviously there was a covert operation going on; the flight school where Mohammad Atta went to, Huffman Aviation in Florida is not a business and was not operating like a business. So it was, and is, something else.
HICKS: You do your homework in this book and you talk about the media paper trail, how they would report one thing one day and then the story changes and details are taken out [in subsequent reports] such as Mohammad Atta was drinking heavily in this bar and then a week later, suddenly the details of the drinking are taken out. Seems like an unofficial story is being created about Mohammad Atta, "he was an Islamic Fundamentalist."
HOPSICKER: Well there were inconvenient facts being reported in the press after September 11. Mohammad Atta's girlfriend is an example, you just mentioned, the big drinking night, and three nights before the attacks…
HICKS: And there is sensational info about Mohammad Atta being kept about his foot fetish, his small penis and the three day cocaine adventures in the Key West, but lets get beyond the sensational details and lets go behind the scenes, you did some great research about Rudy Dekkers and Wally Hilliard, the guys that were running and owning Huffman aviation, where 2 out of 4 pilots were trained, lets talk about your trip to Lynchburg, Virginia that you talk about in this book.
HOPSICKER: Lets talk about Britannia Aviation which is an interesting subject, the operation that was taking place in Venice Florida was not a business, not a flight school that was operating, it was something else. Housed inside Huffman Aviation was a company nobody ever heard about.
HICKS: And you called to Virginia, by a reporter…
HOPSICKER: By a reporter who said that this company he never heard of had just won a major city contract run one of the airline facilities out at the airport over a local competitor who had 45 employees and a multi million dollar bank account. Where as these two guys Huffman Aviation was a paper company and they had less that 750 dollars in the bank. Lynchburg, VA interestingly enough was also home of Reverend Jerry Falwell, and the owner of Huffman aviation Wally Hilliard, gave Falwell a million dollar loan in 1995 that Falwell has felt no need to re-pay.
HICKS: Now the chamber of commerce obviously in Lynchburg are nice businessmen concerned because this company, Britannia Aviation, has landed this contract without having any kind of credibility
HOPSICKER: None. None and since then I've got phone calls from Lynchburg Airport that tell me that one plane comes in a week, and then goes into the hangar and the doors immediately come down and that they have shades on all of the windows. Whatever they were doing there could not be paying the lease on the land that they were paying
HICKS: I think the real shocker was the…what was the quotation? "Green light from the DEA?"
HOPSICKER: Correct. That s what Huffman Aviation had
HICKS: And who told you that?
HOPSICKER: A business owner at the Venice airport who checked with the DEA contact of his, to find out about what these people's connection might be after Sept. 11th . And he was told that they had a "green light from the DEA."
HICKS: So in the book you talk about the connection of Wally Hilliard, the owner of Huffman Aviation had with Jerry Falwell also Truman Arnold….
HOPSICKER: And the whole point is that the government story is that these terrorists wondered into flight schools here and there across the country of course all of them, three or four of them learnt to fly and flew on September 11. So the government's story is that they just wandered in there. Well, the owner and the manager of that facility had ties at the highest levels of the US government in political circles
HICKS: You are talking about Rudy or Wally now?
HOPSICKER: Wally Hilliard, finance chief connected to the former political Democratic political party finance chairman.
HICKS: Hilliard has connections, but lets talk about his henchman, Rudy Dekkers,
HOPSICKER: Rudy Dekkers is the person everybody remembers, because Rudy was the man who told us who these hijackers were the day after the attack
HICKS: He was a camera hog.
HOPSICKER: He was on every TV show you've ever heard of, he was on Larry King and did all of the major TV shows
HICKS: But what have you found out about him?
HOPSICKER: Well he is an international criminal, he is called by the prosecuting attorneys in his native Netherlands, to which he can not return without going to jail, "the spider in the web of intrigue." So this international criminal was telling us who Mohammad Atta was. And its just ridiculous, it's not that they didn't do the due diligence. It's that they were told to interview this person. Several people in Huffman Aviation told me that FBI was telling this guy what to say before he went up in front of the cameras
HICKS: That's amazing. You're saying that FBI was feeding Dekkers the story?
HOPSICKER: Absolutely, the office manager of the Naples facility said that there was a FBI man sitting there feeding him lies.
HICKS: What did Max Bruge told you about Rudy Dekkers?
HOPSICKER: That was interesting…he introduced himself as a consultant to the government of the US an ex marine with the brushcut, owns an airport in Mississippi. And clearly he had strong government connections, and he told me he had checked in to Wally and Rudy, based on things I told him. What he heard about Rudy Dekkers was "Rudy was huge." He is not national, he is "transnational." And he was warned to stay away from him and not to ask questions.
HICKS: Max was warned to stay away and not questions?
It seems that Rudy is falling out the favor and with whoever he was connected to
HOPSICKER:, He embarrassed the president of the US according to the source that I told you about ..
HICKS: Right and there was a mysterious helicopter crash…
HOPSICKER: See the basic story is and I need to tell you in just 30 seconds is [that] the government's story is that I call the Magic Dutch Boy theory. Remember the Kennedy assassination when the "magic bullet" has passed thru three people, the only way they could make a story of one lone gunman even remotely logically possible?
HICKS: Most of the people never bought that and still don't.
HOPSICKER: Similarly, in 9/11, it's only through the Magic Dutch Boy theory that you can believe these people came over here without the knowledge and consent of the U.S. government. The government's story is that the year before the terrorists began to arrive in force, two separate Dutch nationals purchased separately the two flight schools at the Venice, Florida, airport, that, eight or nine months afterward, began training terrorists how to fly.
HICKS: Right. But when it all sort of fell apart, both Dutch nationals happened to have two separate aircraft accidents.
HOPSICKER: That's correct. They are inconvenient people at this point, because if either one of them ever talked, it could bring down the government of the current administration.
HICKS: Or, if, let's say the 9/11 Commission bothered to take a look at your book, or call any of the people that are mentioned in it. You have a slew of people that knew Mohamed Atta first hand.
HOPSICKER: This is a job you would have thought the mainstream press would have done. And if not the mainstream press, then the official investigative arms of the U.S. government.
HICKS: hmmm! But…Unless….
HOPSICKER: Well, we have to remember, there has been no investigation of 9/11 to which the American people have been privy. To this date, almost three years afterwards, there has been no official investigation. The Senate and House Committees, as you know, met behind closed doors and released a report that contained 28 blank pages. The current 9/11 Commission is only tasked with coming up with suggestions to prevent a repeat of 9/11. To keep "it" from happening again, but "it" has never been investigated. So, I went to Florida, which is what any reporter or homicide investigator would have done, and started knocking on doors.
HICKS: And you had an experience, you told me earlier, with Rudi Dekkers, personally.
HOPSICKER: Recently.
HICKS: You covered his felony arraignment, at the courthouse?
HOPSICKER: That's correct.
HICKS: You were coming out of the courthouse…What happened?
HOPSICKER: He was sitting on a bus bench, and I had to pass him to get to my car. He stood up when he saw me and began waving his arms in the air, and exclaiming in a very loud voice, "I'm–WARNING you. I'm–WARNING You." And I stopped and I said, "You're warning me about what?" And he said, "I'm not going to talk to you, I don't want to talk to you." And I said, "Well, if you don't want to talk to me that's all you have to say. But Warning me, who the heck do you think you are?" And as I walked past him out of the side of his mouth, he said, "you'll find out…you'll find out."
HICKS: Do you fear for your personal safety?
HOPSICKER: Not at all.
HICKS: Why not?
HOPSICKER: Because I'm chubby, bald and middle-aged.
[laughter]
HOPSICKER: You have to face that at a certain point. And I did. When I was writing Barry and the Boys, I was getting death threats, I was "threatening to compromise current operations."
HICKS: Since you mentioned it, let's mention Barry and the Boys, real quick, this is your background, you're the author of this book about CIA drug-runner Barry Seal. What are the similarities between this book and the book about Mohamed Atta?
HOPSICKER: Barry and the Boys gave me the knowledge of how aviation crime is committed. And how state-sponsored aviation crime is committed. Barry Seal was the biggest drug smuggler in American history. Four best sellers were written about him. His operation at Mena [Arkansas] was used to smear Bill Clinton, President Clinton, during his entire term in office, until push came to shove, and they went forward with nothing but Monica Lewinsky. Barry Seal, I discovered, unlike the four best sellers that had been written about him, was a lifelong CIA agent who flew at the Bay of Pigs. Who flew weapons to Fidel Castro when the CIA supported him, who flew a getaway plane out of Dallas, Texas after the Kennedy assassination. Had a major role in Watergate. None of which had been published in the best sellers before me, which is why my book was not a best seller. [Laughs]. That's what you find out. But I was waiting for this book to come out when September 11th happened. And three days after September 11th happened, it came out, in a really strange way, kind of quiet, kind of sotto voce, that three of the four terrorist pilots had learned to fly in Venice, not just the two that had taken down the World Trade Center, ostensibly, but a third, Said Al-Jarrah And I thought, that's really weird, because my parents had a retirement home in Venice since 1975…
HICKS: So, that was your home base in Venice.
HOPSICKER: Well, it's a place that we would go to see our parents three to four days every winter, and it's a family joke, there's nothing to do, if you're under 65, in Venice, Florida, so why would a 30 year old man, even if he was a terrorist, especially if he was a terrorist in the last year of his life, choose to fly…I mean there are 220 flight schools in Florida alone, why go to Venice? Well, if you were choosing a flight school, you wouldn't go to Venice, but if you were assigned a flight school, or sent to one, you might, and that would be a whole different story than what the government's told us so far.
HICKS: Let's wrap up by talking a little about Amanda Keller, she was Mohamed Atta's girlfriend in Florida. You found her. Nobody else could find her. What does she tell us about Mohamed Atta?
HOPSICKER: Two or three really interesting things. Mohamed Atta had an American girlfriend. With whom he lived for two and a half months, in an apartment across the street from the Venice airport, at a time when the FBI says he was not in Venice anymore. She was in the news briefly after September 11th. Interviewed by three or four local reporters, they did stories on her, and then she disappeared. And the story disappeared. Now, you have never heard that Mohamed Atta had an American girlfriend, because it never made the national press. Which is itself bizarre. Because she was a stripper when she knew him…so you would think, "Interviews with the Stripper Girlfriend of the Terrorist Mastermind…"
HICKS: …who has insider information on Atta's sex life…
HOPSICKER: You'd think it would be plastered everywhere. But it wasn't. And she disappeared. And when I tracked her down six months later, actually a year later, she told me, as several other witnesses told me, that she had been personally intimidated, on a weekly basis, by the FBI, into keeping her mouth shut, and not talking, about what she knew. And the reason for that becomes apparent when you see what she knew. You're about to see a clip….basically, she knew intimate personal details, but she had her eyes open…you're going to see that two or three of Mohamed Atta's closest associates weren't Arab. They were German. German and Swiss.
HICKS: Daniel, thank you for coming on the program, you're doing work no one else is doing. We really appreciate it. Let's close now by going to the clip. This is the debut. Amanda Keller. Mohamed Atta's American girlfriend. No one else has seen this because no one else has done this story. Daniel Hopsicker found her when nobody else would. So, enjoy:
CLIP of Hopsicker's Documentary on Amanda Keller:Daniel Hopsicker in Voice Over (VO): We thought that by now Diane Sawyer, or someone else living in Disney Time/Warner Land would already have done Amanda's story. Since they haven't, we'll offer what we have. From a videotape rolled for video documentation, from an interview with her at an undisclosed location. Atta and Amanda met when she came into Poppa John's Pizza in Venice, where she was a manager. Pay attention to who she said he was with:
Amanda: Mohamed came in with Peter and Stephan, and Jurigen.
VO: If you listen closely to Amanda's tale, about an otherwise unremarkable, casual hook up, Florida-style, there are some nuggets of information about Mohamed Atta that are real gold. From her we learn, for example, that Mohamed Atta's associates were as likely to be German as Arab.
HOPSICKER: (Off Camera): The first time you saw him he was with who?
Amanda: He was with Peter and Stephan, and Jurigen.
HOPSICKER: So, he was with three Germans?
KELLER: No, Jurigen was the only German guy. Peter and Stephan I thought were from Austria. That we later went to Key West with.
VO: Atta's first big date was a booze and drug filled three-day weekend in the fleshpots of Key West.
KELLER: We went to Key West for three days.
HOPSICKER: Who's we?
KELLER: Me, Mohamed, Peter, Stephan and Linda.
HOPSICKER: Who's Linda?
KELLER: She told me that she was a stripper, but she told the told the newspaper that she worked for a cleaning service.
VO: Mohamed Atta didn't act like any Islamic Fundamentalist we've ever heard about.
KELLER: Peter, Stephan and Mohamed were talking to these flight students that were from the airport over there. They were talking in a language, I didn't know what it was…but Mohamed was fluent in every language I could think of. He could talk to anybody.
VO: Atta was a smooth operator, fluent in half a dozen languages. Atta was Wahabi 007.
HOPSICKER: When y'all got back y'all had been up for 72 hours.
KELLER: No, we slept…here and there, [laughs] for a few hours.
HOPSICKER: You were partying, were they doing drugs?
KELLER: Yeah, but not in front of me. They didn't do it in front of me until I met everybody at the apartment.
VO: Amanda has even more shocking news about Terrorist ringleader, Islamic fundamentalist, and recreational drug user, Mohamed Atta. When they were in Key West, Mohamed and his German buddies went to a meeting. And when they came back, they were all glum.
KELLER: Peter, Stephan, and Mohamed, all went to Hard Rock Café. And they were meeting with people down there. I don't know who, but somebody had flown in….I don't know who, but they said somebody had flown in, in one of those little single planes? To come speak to them. When they had got back, they were waiting for us on the dock, waiting for the boat to come back. And everybody was kind of somber-looking. You know, they were kind of quiet.
VO: It's obvious what the meeting was about. Discussion about the upcoming death of at least one of the participants would tend to put a damper on things….What isn't obvious, is what kind of Islamic Fundamentalist goes to meetings in Key West with guys named Stephan and Jurigen?
[END]
INN WORLD REPORT
"News the Networks Won't Tell You"
Interview with Daniel Hopsicker
Conducted by Sander Hicks
Broadcast 6/11/04 on INN World Report,
Free Speech TV, Channel 9415, DiSHNetwork
http://www.sanderhicks.com/hopsickerinterview.html
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