A German man said on Friday he was shocked to learn that a former university friend was believed to have been among suicide hijackers of a plane that smashed into the World Trade Center this week.
Mohammed Atta, 33, reportedly an Egyptian, is believed to have been at the controls of the first plane to hit the Trade Center on Tuesday.
"I was shocked to see Mohammed's picture on the news. He seemed like such a nice guy," 31-year-old Martin Ebert, who now lives in Norway, said. He said he had contacted the Norwegian intelligence service.
Ebert said he often had breakfast with Atta before classes at Hamburg's Technical University, where they both attended a course in city planning until 1997.
Almost 5,000 people remained unaccounted for on Friday after two hijacked planes destroyed the Center's twin towers.
Another plane crashed into the Pentagon near Washington and a fourth crashed in Pennsylvania after an apparent struggle between passengers and hijackers.
Atta is believed to have belonged to a Hamburg-based extremist group thought to be linked with Saudi-born exiled dissident Osama bin Laden.
"Mohammed was never extreme in any way. He always spoke with a soft voice. He was polite, reserved and correct," Ebert said. "From the beginning to the end, this whole ordeal is completely unreal to me."
Ebert said Atta, who is believed to have been enrolled at the university for eight years, seldom spoke about politics and never expressed militant opinions.
"He was very interested in issues relating to development in developing countries. Other than that, he never initiated political discussions," Ebert said.
"He was also very committed to the studies and once organized a student trip to Aleppo in Syria."
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