| Cairolive.com
provides you, below, with an exclusive roundup of press
coverage about the Hisham Hedayat shooting at LA airport |
Wait and see
Slowly but surely, more information is emerging regarding the
strange incident that took place at LA International airport on July
4. Although the details remain sketchy, what does seem clear is that
this was probably not a clear-cut case of terrorism, as Israel has
tried to paint it.
An Egyptian immigrant to the US
-- Hesham Hedayat -- has been identified as the shooter who took two
lives at the El Al counter at LAX. Hedayat's motives -- and the exact
sequence of events that took place -- remain mired in uncertainty and
cotroversy three days after the fact.
According to this story by AFP,
the dispute between Hedayat -- a limo driver who owned his own company
-- and the Israeli airline may have been financial in nature:
Hedayat's relatives are claiming that the "Israeli airline had
been late in paying for two limousine rentals from the Egyptian
immigrant's company."
The story quotes Hedayat's
relatives in Cairo extensively, all of whom seem like very respectable
members of society.
One says that, "We are
sure that he had no connection with extremist organizations. He is a
pious Muslim but he is not at all extremist. The proof of this is that
he agreed to work with the Israeli company El Al."
In another article, Egyptian
Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher says "Until
now, nobody knows the motives behind this incident. We have to await
the outcome of the current investigations so that we can review them."
Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram
reports that Hedayat's relatives say he was not a weapons-carrying
type, and did not know how to shoot a gun. They suspect a scenario
whereby Hedayat went in to collect payment from an Israeli tour
company with which he had business driving limousine passengers. A
fight may have broken out over his payment.
According to this report,
Hedayat had some of the same visa-related problems a lot of immigrants
to the US go through, but had sorted them out long ago and was well on
his way to becoming a US citizen.
An in-general very positive
story about Hedayat and his family from AP
features a quote from a 16-year-old neighbor of Hadayat's in LA who
once asked him about using his limousine to take her to the prom:
"She came home and said
'Dad, this guy is so cool,'" the girl's father said, adding that
Hadayet offered his daughter "a really low price."
Revealing his own bias, the
Jewish father did not allow the daughter to use Hedayat's service
because he felt uncomfortable.
The article also mentions that
Hedayat was upset when a neighbor put a huge US flag up near his door
after September 11.
Hedayat himself had a sticker
that said "Read the Koran" that was removed.
Al-Ahram reports that Hedayat
later put the sticker back up. This story, however, doesn't mention
that.
Meanwhile, an in-depth piece
in the New York Times reveals more about Hedayat's neighbors and the
incident itself.
previous Hedayat
update...
Jumping
the gun?
The Los Angeles airport shooting incident at Israel's El Al
counter embedded itself -- via blockbuster coverage -- on the minds
of America, and the world, for the fourth of July.
An Egyptian was soon identified
as the gunman who had killed two people before being shot dead by an
El Al security guard. Hesham Mohamed Hadayet was a
41-year-old limousine driver " who listed July 4 as his birthday on
one of two driver's licenses," reported AP.
CNN
reported that "Hadayet was not a U.S. citizen but had a
"green card" that allowed him to work in the U.S."
The details of
the incident and why it had taken place remained unclear. Police searched
Hedayat's apartment in
suburban Irvine, 35 miles southeast of the airport, late Thursday. Neighbors
told them Hedayat's
wife and two sons went to Egypt for the summer.
In Cairo, reports AP,
"Egyptian police arrived at the apartment of Hadayet's father... which
is in a well-kept, six-story building in Abbasiya, a middle-income
area of the city."
The news agency quoted retired
general Hassan Mostafa Mahfouz, the husband of Hadayet's aunt,
saying " the news of the airport shooting
left him in disbelief."
"There is no evidence, no indication at this time that this is
terrorists," White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said
Friday.
Israel, nonetheless quickly
called the attack terrorism. In Israelis
jump the gun, Justin Raimondo describes the immediate
Israeli finger-pointing at a wider terrorist motive "positively
ghoulish".
