January 7, 2000 or Shortly After: Malaysian Authorities Search Computers Used by Malaysia Summit Attendees

Some attendees at al-Qaeda’s Malaysia summit, including 9/11 hijacker Khalid Almihdhar, use an Internet café while on a shopping trip. They spend “many hours in front of the computers,” all the while under surveillance by the Malaysian Special Branch. After they leave the café, the Malaysians search the hard drives of the computers that were used. What information is learned and what use is made of this information is not known. However, information about the summit is passed to the CIA around this time (see January 5-9, 2000). [Die Zeit (Hamburg), 10/1/2002; Australian, 12/24/2002; Stern, 8/13/2003]