LOS ANGELES/CAIRO, 7 July — The family of the Egyptian gunman, who went on a shooting spree at the Los Angeles airport’s El Al ticketing counter, said yesterday they believed he was motivated by financial problems with the Israeli airline, and not by politics or terrorism.
In the first official Egyptian reaction to the shooting, Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher also said he believed Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, who killed two people before he was gunned down, was carrying out a personal grudge.
"Egyptian security services on Friday told the father of Hadayet the incident was due to financial problems with El Al," one of his cousins, Emad Al-Omda, told AFP by telephone from the family home in Cairo’s Abbasiya neighborhood.
Omda claimed the Israeli airline had been late in paying for two limousine rentals from the Egyptian immigrant’s company. "We are sure that he had no connection with extremist organizations. He was a pious Muslim and not at all an extremist. The proof of this is that he agreed to work with the Israeli company El Al," Omda said.
Maher also said he was skeptical the July 4 Independence Day shooting was a terrorist attack.
"No one has suggested that this disaster was caused by a specific reason other than a personal one," the foreign minister said.
"No one knows the motives behind the incident yet. It is necessary to wait for the (result of) investigations before it is possible to comment on it," Maher said, adding he was "surprised by the amplification of this incident."
Meanwhile, as investigators continued yesterday to scour the home of Hadayet for clues to his motives, US officials said they were convinced he had set out to kill.
Federal agents combed the Egyptian immigrant’s home for clues as to why he opened fire on his birthday Thursday killing two people and injuring four others.
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation said Hadayet had intended to murder people when he turned up at LA airport, armed with a .45-caliber semiautomatic Glock pistol, a 9-mm handgun and a 15-cm knife.
Still, Special Agent Rich Garcia said Hadayet’s motives remained murky. "It appears that he went there with the intention of killing people," Garcia told reporters. "Why he did that is still undetermined. That’s what we are trying to find out." The agent declined to classify the incident that occurred as passengers queued for a Tel Aviv-bound flight on El Al saying it was too early to draw conclusions.
