A former Iraqi intelligence officer who was believed to have met with the suspected leader of the September 11 attacks has told US interrogators that the meeting never happened, The New York Times reported Saturday.
The officer, Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, was taken into custody by US troops in July.
Citing US officials familiar with classified intelligence reports, The Times said that Ani denies meeting Mohamed Atta in Prague.
The paper said American officials caution that Ani "may have been lying" to American interrogators, but the only other person reported to have attended the meeting was Atta, who died in the crash of his hijacked plane into the World Trade Center.
Reports that an Iraqi agent had met with Atta in Prague circulated after the attacks on New York and the Pentagon, but they have been in dispute ever since.
Conservatives both inside and outside of the Bush administration, arguing for war with Iraq, pointed to the reports as evidence of a link between the ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, the report said. (Albawaba.com)
