U.S. Deports Algerian Man

An Algerian man who entered the United States with a false passport and later met two of the Sept. 11 hijackers in San Diego has been deported to Algeria, immigration officials announced Friday.

Samir Abdoun, 38, lived for a few months with four men who had shared a home with two hijackers whose plane hit the Pentagon -- Nawaf al Hazmi and Khalid al Mihdhar, immigration officials said.

Though Abdoun was introduced to the two men, he was not charged as a terrorist or detained as a material witness to the events of Sept. 11, according to immigration officials.

Abdoun was arrested 11 days after the 2001 attacks and convicted of immigration and passport violations and Social Security fraud, immigration officials said.

Armed federal agents escorted Abdoun onto a commercial flight Thursday in San Diego; he arrived Friday in Algeria, where authorities took him into custody.

Abdoun entered the United States in August 1998 by presenting a false French passport in Los Angeles, a Department of Homeland Security statement said.

Border Patrol agents first arrested him in November 1998 at a checkpoint on Interstate 5 in San Clemente, but he failed to appear at deportation proceedings and was a fugitive until his apprehension.