ALEXANDRIA (USA), March 20: An FBI agent testified on Monday that he warned his bosses about Zacarias Moussaoui 70 times before the Sept 11 attacks and raised fears he may have planned to hijack an airliner.

Agent Harry Samit took the witness stand at the death penalty trial of the confessed Al Qaeda plotter, as it resumed with dramatic testimony after a week in peril of being thrown out by a judge over a witness coaching scandal.

Mr Samit, who arrested Mr Moussaoui after he aroused suspicion at a flight school weeks before the attacks, also admitted his efforts to warn US government agencies about the threat had been actively obstructed by his superiors.

He was shown a memo he sent to FBI headquarters in Washington on August 18, 2001, in which he fired off a volley of warnings about his suspicions over Moussaoui.

Mr Samit warned that the 37-year-old Frenchman was learning how to steer a 747-400 airliner, had a portable GPS navigation system, was an Islamic fundamentalist who approved of martyrdom, was armed with small knives and was training in martial arts.

Samit testified that his superiors in FBI anti-terrorism units in Washington had declined his request for permission to apply for a criminal search warrant and to undertake an application to a special intelligence court, so he could search Moussaoui’s belongings.

He finally got a criminal warrant on September 11, 2001 hours after lethal attacks that day killed 3,000 people.—AFP