Instructor: Foreign student pilots arrested by INS

Thursday, November 8, 2001

Associated Press

PORT CHARLOTTE — Three student pilots from Tunisia were arrested, according to the students' instructor, who said Wednesday one student told him he was facing immigration charges because his visa had expired.

The three were arrested Tuesday at Charlotte County Airport by the FBI and Immigration and Naturalization Service, according to Glen Happe, owner of the Bald Eagle Aviation flight school and the students' instructor.

The students were just days away from completing their training and were ready to return to Tunisia.

"These students would have been done and gone," Happe said. "They have been investigated for many weeks over, there is nothing wrong with them."

The students were being held in the Hillsborough County Jail in Tampa Wednesday, but were moved from the jail at midday. Immigration officials declined to comment on their whereabouts citing its cooperation with the FBI and the sensitivity of the ongoing investigation.

Flight instructor Walter Bradshaw said students Nabil Mokhtar Ferchichi, 23, and Mohamad Nidhal Kharbech, 19, were taking the exams when two U.S. Border Patrol agents showed up. A third student, Maryem Bedoui, 21, also was being held by immigration officials, in Tampa.

The students were part of a group of Tunisians recruited by a now defunct flight school in Punta Gorda, about 50 miles south of Sarasota. When the school went bankrupt earlier this year, Happe opened a new flight school to help them finish their training.

Investigators focused on the school after being told that Mohamed Atta, the accused ringleader of the Sept. 11 suicide attackers, had visited Punta Gorda's airport during his flight training at another flight school in Venice.

Federal authorities did not make public any details of the arrests.

FBI spokeswoman Sara Oates in Tampa said the FBI only assisted the INS in making the arrests.

"They were not arrested on FBI violations," Oates said.

But in Miami, regional INS spokesman Rodney Germain said: "We are assisting the FBI. Because of the sensitivity of the investigation and the importance of the information, we cannot release any information."

Happe said one of the students phoned him and told him he was arrested because his visa to stay in the United States had expired. Happe said it was likely the other students had expired visas because they all arrived in Florida at the same time.

-- Anonymous, November 08, 2001