Police Release Videotape of Hijacker

Jan. 8 -- Maryland State Police today released a videotape of Sept. 11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah being stopped for speeding in Maryland, just two days before the attacks.

The tape shows a traffic stop involving Jarrah, identified as one the men who hijacked United Airlines Flight 93, which left Newark, N.J., bound for San Francisco before crashing in Stony Creek Township, Pa., on Sept. 11.

Col. David B. Mitchell of the Maryland State Police said he decided to release the tape after several requests were made for it under the state's public information act.

The tape, recorded a few minutes after 12 a.m. on Sept. 9, was started after Jarrah was stopped on Interstate 95 in Maryland for traveling 90 mph in a 65 mph zone.

Jarrah is not visible on the tape, which was shot from the dashboard of Maryland Trooper Joseph Catalano's patrol car.

‘No Hint’ of Impending Attacks

Mitchell said Jarrah was carrying a Virginia license in his name. The car he was driving was a 2001 red Mitsubishi Galant registered to a New Jersey car rental company.

Mitchell said Catalano gave Jarrah a ticket that carried a fine of $270. He said Jarrah signed the citation and was "calm and cooperative."

Mitchell said Catalano reported that he scanned the vehicle twice. He said there were no items in the passenger area — "no hint as to what Jarrah was to be involved in," he said.

Officials said there was no warrant out for Jarrah's arrest and that he was in the United States legally on a multiple entry visa valid until 2005.

Hours after the Sept. 11 attacks, the FBI searched an apartment in Hollywood, Fla., in which Jarrah was thought to have lived. From 1996 to 2000, he studied aeronautical engineering in Hamburg, Germany.

About 10 days before the attacks, Jarrah called his father asking for $2,000, and then called back two days later to thank him.

Jarrah was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the indictment against French national Zacarias Moussaoui, who has been charged with conspiring with Osama bin Laden, the hijackers and others to commit the Sept. 11 attacks.