Election Section

LOS ANGELES – The government had started deportation proceedings in 1996 against the Egyptian immigrant who gunned down two people at Los Angeles International Airport. But the following year, he gained U.S. residency because of his wife, officials said Saturday. 

It wasn’t clear what caused the Immigration and Naturalization Service to reject Hesham Mohamed Hadayet’s first petition for permanent residency, INS spokesman Francisco Arcaute said. 

The deportation process was started after that rejection, then was stopped when Hadayet gained residency in 1997 through his wife, Hala, who had received an immigration visa through the Department of States’ Diversity Lottery Program, Arcaute said. 

Hadayet’s uncle, Hassan Mostaffa Mahfouz, told The Associated Press in Egypt that Hadayet had only about a year remaining before he qualified for U.S. citizenship. 

Hadayet was happy in the United States, Mahfouz said. 

“I don’t believe what happened,” he said. “I felt that he could not do that.” 

On the Fourth of July, Hadayet was the fourth person in line at the ticket counter for El Al, Israel’s national airline, when he began firing, killing two people and wounding three others, authorities said. He fired off 10 or 11 bullets before he was shot dead by a security guard. 

His wife and sons, Adam, 8, and Omar, 14, were visiting family in Egypt at the time. 

FBI special agent Richard Garcia said Saturday it still wasn’t known if Hadayet harbored anti-Israel feelings, as a former employee claimed he did, and may have been motivated by hate. 

Authorities had also not ruled out terrorism as a motive, and they were also considering the possibility that Hadayet was despondent over his personal or business affairs. Israeli officials said they would consider the attack an act of terror unless it was proven otherwise. 

“We are pursuing all three motives,” Garcia said. 

What is clear, Garcia said, is that Hadayet walked into the airport intending to kill. He was armed with a .45-caliber semiautomatic Glock pistol, a 9 mm handgun and a 6-inch knife. 

The FBI searched the family’s apartment and took a computer, books, binders and other material, but released no details Saturday of what they contained. 

Results from an autopsy conducted Saturday found that Hadayet died of a gunshot wound to the abdomen, said Dr. James Ribe of the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office. Shooting victim Yaakov Aminov died of a gunshot wound to the abdomen. The other shooting victim, Victoria Hen, who worked behind the El Al ticket counter, died of a gunshot wound to the chest, Ribe said. 

Abdul Zahav, a man who said he worked for Hadayet until he was fired two years ago, said Hadayet once told him he hated all Israelis. “He kept all his anger inside him,” Zahav said. 

A bumper sticker on Hadayet’s front door read, “Read the Koran.” However, Hadayet was apparently an unknown in the mosques attended by most of Southern California’s 1 million Arab Americans. 

After the FBI released his name as the gunman, members of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles began calling members and mosques in suburban Orange County where he lived. No one recognized his name. 

“It’s a very bizarre case because this man is unknown to the community and was not part of any organization,” said Salam Al-Marayati, director of the council. “At this point it just seems like the work of a deranged individual.” 

Police records in Irvine show officers had little contact with Hadayet over the 10 years he lived there. Police were called to his apartment once for a domestic dispute in May 1996, three months after his petition for permanent residency was rejected. They found Hadayet and his wife had been in a “physical confrontation,” but no charges were filed. 

The only other Irvine police files on Hadayet were when he was robbed in 1997 while driving a cab and when he was listed as a witness and victim in a fraud case reported in 2001. 

Also Saturday, authorities evacuated 700 people from an area near the scene of the shooting for about an hour because they found an unattended bag. A broken bottle of vodka was found inside a novelty package shaped like an instrument case that had the words “hunting rifle” printed on it, said Los Angeles Police Officer John Crispins.