No new information was available on Tuesday concerning the possible connections that a Saudi man, Hamza al-Ghamdi, may have had with Finland. Hamza al-Ghamdi is suspected of having been one of the terrorists involved in the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York.

   

The FBI believe that he was one of five who hijacked a United Airlines Boeing 767 bound from Boston to Los Angeles on the morning of September 11th and flew it into the South Tower of the World Trade Center.

Yesterday we reported

that al-Ghamdi had applied for a visa to visit Finland last year, and that his application had been forwarded to Finland's Security Police (SUPO), after which the Foreign Ministry decided to reject the application. Now Helsingin Sanomat has learned that the decision to reject the visa application was made by the Finnish embassy in Riyadh, and that there were no consultations with Helsinki.

   

According to the latest information, the application was rejected by embassy officials because Hamza al-Ghamdi, or someone else using his name, was caught giving false information in connection with his application.

   

Administrative foreign affairs secretary Seppo Tauren at the Foreign Ministry says that officials had written "false information" on al-Ghamdi's application papers, which was sufficient for a rejection of his application.

Al-Ghamdi's visa application

was at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs on Tuesday.

   

Reading from the application, Tauren said that Hamza al-Ghamdi, a 20-year-old citizen of Saudi Arabia, had applied for a one-month tourist visa to Finland at the Finnish Embassy in Riyadh on October 22, 2000.

   

The space on the application form asking for the name and address of a possible host in Finland was left empty, as is often the case with tourist visas.

   

Al-Ghamdi then underwent a normal interview at the embassy. In the interview, the man made statements that an Embassy official found to be false, and the application was rejected.

   

"We do not know what the false information was", says Seppo Tauren.

   

He also says that the application was not sent to Helsinki, nor were the Security Police informed. According to Tauren, the decision to reject the application was made in Riyadh.

Officials at the Finnish Embassy

in Saudi Arabia no longer remember what the alleged false statements were which led to the rejection of Hamza al-Ghamdi. "The information was not written down, and a year has gone by. It was just one visa application among others", an Embassy official said.

   

The Embassy also would not say which of its officials interviewed the suspected terrorist.