There is another curious, but perhaps non-significant coincidence about Holy Cross Hospital, since the AMI intern, Jordan Arizmendi, who was initially under suspicion for his "strange" e-mail of farewell to the staff at AMI, developed pneumonia in October and was hospitalized at Holy Cross Hospital. The hospital is in Fort Lauderdale, Southeast Broward Country, (where Arizmendi’s parents were said to live) whereas Delray is in Eastern Palm Beach County, and there are at least a few other hospitals I can think of closer to Delray. OTOH, Holy Cross is a well-known medical center in South Florida.
Arizmendi was originally thought to be “Middle Eastern,” but was later reported to be “a third-generation US citizen of Spanish-Basque descent.” The AP also reported that his mother is Jewish. That’s about all that was ever reported about him, except that he was interviewing for a post-graduate internship with Disney, and was then (10/01) a senior at Florida Atlantic University. His father, Hank Arizmendi, said that he his internship at AMI ended in mid-August, but that he had returned to AMI in mid-September “to visit friends.” He also apparently attended the American School in Japan, since he’s listed on the website as a ’96 alumnus with an e-mail address at FAU.
I also remember a local South Florida TV segment about a female employee at a private medical clinic in Miami, who was fired for going public with the fact that Atta and company visited the center and used their computers. Never heard any more on that.
AMI picks up its mail. It had recently changed the pickup location. Contamination was found in the facility which had previously been the correct destination for AMI mail. The mail forwarding unit was also contaminated, and then the facility where AMI presently picks up its mail was also contaminated.
All of the contamination is limited to the route the AMI mail would have taken to get from Boca Raton main post office to and through the various facilities.
This pretty well rules out cross contamination.
We also know that the anthrax powder can pass through the paper envelopes. It does not do so rapidly. The fact that there was little contamination in South Florida is consistent with the thought that the letter sent to AMI was delivered shortly after it was mailed.
My take is that ALL the letters were mailed on or about September 8 or 9, in South Florida, by the same individuals!
I forgot about that. Mohamed Atta is said to have attempted to visit a prisoner in Tarragona Prison in northeastern Spain, in July, 2001. He also is said to have met with Islamic extremists at the nearby Mediterranean resort town of Salou. This was Atta's last known trip to Europe. I don't know who the prisoner was. I wonder if there's a connection with the Basque separatist movement and/or with Arizmendi?
There is one point of confusion about this trip. The prison visit was said to be on July 21, but his itinerary shows that he returned to the U.S. on July 19, so something doesn't quite jibe here (but it could just be a minor mistake in one of the dates).
Here are some more details on Atta's whereabouts at the time. He was in Las Vegas from June 29 to July 1. I don't know where he was for the next few days, but he might have been in Washington, DC, since there's a reference to him being in Washington sometime in July. On July 7, he flew to Spain, renting a car and driving to Salou in the northeast part of the country, One report suggests that he may also have met with Iraqi intelligence agent Habib Faris Abdullah al-Mamouri in Rome in July. He would have visited the Tarragona Prison towards the end of his trip, then driven (to Madrid?) to catch his July 19(?) flight back to the U.S.