WTC Hotel Security Guard Jailed For Lying To FBI

NEW YORK— A security guard was sentenced May 30 to weekends in jail for six months for lying to the FBI about the location of a pilot radio found in the Millenium Hilton Hotel, near the World Trade Center, after 9/11. An Egyptian student was jailed for a month after the hotel guard, Ronald Ferry, said the pilot radio was in a locked safe in the students room overlooking the trade center. The student, Abdallah Higazy, had insisted he knew nothing about the handheld device, called a transceiver, which enables pilots to communicate with other pilots or to monitor pilot conversations. The radio was found after the hotel was evacuated because of the Sept. 11 attack. Higazy, the son of an Egyptian diplomat, was charged with making false statements to investigators. Prosecutors dropped the charges against him after a private pilot, another hotel guest, went to claim the radio on Jan. 14. Investigators went back to Ferry, who changed his story to say the radio had been found on a table in the room rather than in a locked safe, raising the possibility someone had put the radio in Higazys room after Sept. 11. SOURCE: The Associated Press