Vaclav Havel says no evidence of Moh. Atta Meeting with Iraqi

national | miscellaneous | news report Monday October 21, 2002 12:55 by Vaclav Havel

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October 21, 2002
Prague Discounts an Iraqi Meeting
By JAMES RISEN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/21/international/21PRAG.html?pagewanted=print&position=top

PRAGUE, Oct. 20 — The Czech president, Vaclav Havel, has quietly told the White House he has concluded that there is no evidence to confirm earlier reports that Mohamed Atta, the leader in the Sept. 11 attacks, met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague just months before the attacks on New York and Washington, according to Czech officials.

Mr. Havel discreetly called Washington to tell senior Bush administration officials that an initial report from the Czech domestic intelligence agency that Mr. Atta had met with an Iraqi intelligence officer, Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, in Prague in April 2001 could not be substantiated.

Czech officials did not say precisely when Mr. Havel told the White House to disregard the reports of the meeting, but extensive interviews with leading Czech figures make clear that he did so quietly some time earlier this year in an effort to avoid publicly embarrassing other prominent officials in his government, who had given credibility to the reports through their public and private statements in the months after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.