Airport assassin was lone Egyptian

IT WAS just before 11:30am when Hesham Mohamed Hadayet walked through the doors of the Tom Bradley International Departures terminal at Los Angeles International Airport. It was Thursday morning, and it was his 41st birthday.

Earlier, he had called his father in Egypt from his flat in the Woodbridge Pines development, a middle-class area sandwiched between restaurants and shops in suburban Orange County.

As a dutiful son, he knew his father would want to wish him happy birthday. Perhaps he also wanted to receive the best wishes of his wife and two sons, aged eight and 11, who were staying with his mother and father in their flat in a six-storey building in one of the better parts of Cairo.

If Hadayet gave any intimation of his plans for the day, the family are not saying. All that is known is that sometime later the limousine driver left the apartment and set off in the direction of the airport 35 miles to the north-west .

Entering the departure building, Hadayet was hardly inconspicuous. Powerfully built, with greying hair, he weighed a little over 16 stone. He had concealed a .45-calibre Glock handgun and a 9mm handgun along with a six-inch knife and extra ammunition and magazines for the guns.

Accounts of what happened next differ wildly. According to some witnesses, he joined the queue for the crowded El Al ticket desk and slowly shuffled forwards until he reached the counter, where he appeared to become increasingly agitated as he talked to the ticket agent before reaching into his pocket and producing a gun. Others said he simply walked up to the counter and opened fire from as far as 15ft away.

Guillermo Fergoza was standing with his wife about 25ft from the counter when the shooting started. "They started arguing at the counter," said Fergoza. "He stepped back and pulled the gun out of his waistband. A lot of people started falling to the floor."

Arie Golan, a 54-year-old Israeli army veteran on his way to visit his grandchildren in Israel, gave this account: "There were people laying all over the floor. There was blood.

"I heard a lot of shots, maybe 15 or 20. It was very quick. I heard the shots, turned, and I saw the security guard jump over the rope."

Mr Golan said he decided he had to try to help: "I just wanted to stop him. I jumped on him. He still had the gun in his hand. It was a small gun, maybe a .22. We wrestled him to the ground."

It was over in seconds. As the two men wrestled with Hadayet, his gun slipped out of his hands and slithered across the floor. The guard, Haim Sapir, the chief of El Al security, had already been stabbed and shot by Hadayet and he was taking no chances. He shot the gunman dead on the spot.

Two others also lay dead or dying on the ground nearby - Jacob Aminov, 46, an Israeli migr and diamond importer who lived in North Hollywood, and Vicky Chen, a 20-year-old Israeli working as a ticket agent for El Al. Mr Aminov’s pregnant wife fainted when she was told that he had died.

Mr Aminov, the father of eight children, had not been catching a flight but had offered to drive a long-time friend to the airport despite his family’s entreaties to stay at home on such a sensitive day.

As the bodies were taken away and the injured were treated, investigators started to piece together Hadayet’s life.

An Egyptian by birth, Hadayet - who also used the last name Ali - had studied commerce at university and worked as an accountant before arriving in the US in 1992. Although he was not a US citizen, he had a green card enabling him to work and he ran his limousine service, Five Star Limo, from the apartment where he lived with his wife and children.

Neighbours said the rest of the family had gone away on holiday for the summer, leaving Hadayet alone.

He lived quietly, they said, and caused no trouble. But there was one incident which stuck in their minds, shortly after 11 September, when Hadayet lost his cool.

An upstairs neighbour had hung large US and marine flags from the balcony above his front door: "He complained about it to the apartment manager. He thought it was being thrown in his face," said neighbour Steve Thompson.

There was also a car bumper sticker on Hadayet’s front door. "Read the Koran," it said. It was later removed.

In Cairo, his wife and sister were taken away for questioning by Egyptian intelligence officers. Hassan Mostafa Mahfouz, a retired general and Hadayet’s uncle, said the family could not understand why he had carried out the shooting: "I was surprised and upset by this news. I felt that he could not do that. He is a very, very tender person and close to his family," Mr Mahfouz said.

He said Hadayet had been happy in the US: "He wanted to get US citizenship. He had only this year remaining before he qualified for it."

With Hadayet dead, the problem now facing US investigators is establishing why he carried out the act. Israel is adamant that it was terrorism, but the FBI has all but ruled that out.

"We’re not looking for any other suspects," said Richard Garcia, the FBI official in charge of the investigation.

His car, found outside the airport, was removed for further examination. Agents took away boxes of items from his apartment. Reports began to emerge yesterday suggesting that Hadayet could have been a disgruntled former employee of the airline or the airport, or had a dispute over identification in the ticket line, making the terrorism theory even less likely.