According to government officials, a former Minnesota flight
instructor received on Thursday a reward of $5 million from the State
Department for helping the authorities with information about Zacarias
Moussaoui, a conspirator of the 9/11 attacks.
Clarence "Clancy" Prevost, 69, is a former Navy
pilot who worked as a flight instructor at the Pan
Am International
Flight Academy
in Eagan, Minnesota,
in 2001. He had Moussaoui as a student.
Moussaoui was sentenced to life in prison in 2006 for having
connection with the September 11, 2001, attacks on New
York and Washington.
He called himself the "20th hijacker," and is the only person
condemned for those attacks. He is imprisoned at the federal Supermax facility
in Florence, Colorado.
Prevost testified for Moussaoui's trial saying that on the
second day of the training he already paid his tuition of $8,300 for a course
of flight simulator in cash. This made Prevost think that the FBI should be alerted.
In his testimony Prevost said that during a conversation he
had with Moussaoui he asked him is he was a Muslim, and the man answered in a
loud voice: "I am nothing!"
The former flight instructor said that he told his managers that
even thought they don’t know anything about Moussaoui, they are learning him
how to control a 747.
At first his managers told him that as long the man paid his
tuition they didn’t care, but
a day later two Pan Am program managers notified the FBI
about Moussaoui, who was arrested for an immigration violation, CNN reports. He
passed his 90 days in the U.S.
on his French passport.
According to Prevost, Moussaoui wanted to learn how to fly
from Heathrow Airport
in London to New York's
John F. Kennedy Airport, which seemed strange to him as
Moussaoui had no pilot’s license and presented 50 hours of flight time on a
plane with a single engine propeller.
Prevost expressed his concerns about Moussaoui finishing his
lessons on the flight simulator and being able to fly a real 747.
The reward was initially authorized in November 2007 by Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice and the Justice Department. Prevost received his reward
at a closed ceremony from the State Department’s Reward for Justice program.
The Rewards for Justice were formed in 1984 and so far paid
over 50 people rewards of about $77 million.
