An FBI agent said in August last year that accused Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui might take control of an airplane and crash it into the World Trade Center if he was released from custody, according to a court document made public on Friday.
The document relates communications between FBI headquarters and its office in Minneapolis involving Moussaoui, who was being held in Minnesota in August last year on immigration violations after arousing suspicion at a flight school.
The agent said Moussaoui "might take control of an airplane and crash it into the World Trade Center," prosecutors said in the document detailing what has been given to the congressional intelligence committees investigating the attacks.
Moussaoui, who was still in custody on Sept. 11 last year, later became the only person charged in the US with conspiring in the attacks.
The prosecutors also described an FBI report concerning interviews with Moussaoui in mid-August last year, in which FBI agents accused him of giving misleading and evasive answers.
The FBI report described how Moussaoui involved his right to a lawyer when confronted with information "that he was known to be an extremist intent on using his past and future aviation training in furtherance of a terrorist goal."
Questioning of Moussaoui then stopped.
The FBI report said agents in Minneapolis had assessed Moussaoui as an "Islamic fundamentalist preparing for some future act in furtherance of radical fundamentalist goals" involving an aircraft.
The FBI report was turned over as part of the congressional investigation into whether the FBI and CIA had missed possible clues that could have prevented the hijacked plane attacks.
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