Ramzi Binalshibh
Ramzi Binalshibh was born on May 1,1972, in Ghayl Bawazir, Yemen. There does not
seem to be anything remarkable about his family or early background. A friend
who knew Binalshibh in Yemen remembers him as "religious, but not too
religious." From 1987 to 1995, Binalshibh worked as a clerk for the
International Bank of Yemen. He first attempted to leave Yemen in 1995, when he
applied for a U.S. visa. After his application was rejected, he went to Germany
and applied for asylum under the name Ramzi Omar, claiming to be a Sudanese
citizen seeking asylum. While his asylum petition was pending, Binalshibh lived
in Hamburg and associated with individuals from several mosques there. In 1997,
after his asylum application was denied, Binalshibh went home to Yemen but
returned to Germany shortly thereafter under his true name, this time
registering as a student in Hamburg. Binalshibh continually had academic
problems, failing tests and cutting classes; he was expelled from one school in
September 1998.67
According to Binalshibh, he and Atta first met at a mosque in Hamburg in
1995. The two men became close friends and became identified with their shared
extremist outlook. Like Atta, by the late 1990s Binalshibh was decrying what he
perceived to be a "Jewish world conspiracy." He proclaimed that the
highest duty of every Muslim was to pursue jihad, and that the highest honor was
to die during the jihad. Despite his rhetoric, however, Binalshibh presented a
more amiable figure than the austere Atta, and was known within the community as
being sociable, extroverted, polite, and adventuresome.68
In 1998, Binalshibh and Atta began sharing an apartment in the Harburg
section of Hamburg, together with a young student from the United Arab Emirates
named Marwan al Shehhi.69
