Possible new evidence about a meeting in Prague between September 11 plot leader Mohamed Atta and Iraqi intelligence officer Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani has been discovered. (Hat tip: Jihad Watch.)

Investigative journalist Edward J. Epstein has uncovered Czech government visa records indicating al-Ani was posted to the Iraqi embassy in Prague between March 1999 and April 21, 2001, and was involved in handling Iraqi agents.

A search of the Iraq Embassy in Prague after the fall of Baghdad to coalition forces revealed al-Ani had scheduled a meeting for April 8, 2001, with a Hamburg student, according to an appointment calendar obtained by Czech intelligence.

Al-Ani then was placed under surveillance as he met with a young Arab-speaking man in Prague April 8.

After seeing Atta’s photograph after Sept. 11, the Czech counterintelligence watcher identified the man he had seen meeting al-Ani as Atta. Al-Ani was expelled from Prague within two weeks.

According to Epstein, al-Ani denied he met Atta and repeated the denial after being detained by U.S. forces in July.

The CIA has been unable to confirm the Prague meeting between al-Ani and Atta. If confirmed, the meeting would indicate a role by Saddam Hussein’s intelligence service in some level of support for the Sept.11 plot.

The current official U.S. intelligence conclusion is that Saddam’s regime was not involved in supporting the Sept. 11 attacks.

According to Epstein, Spanish intelligence has uncovered information indicating Algerians Khaled Madani and Moussa Laouar supplied Atta and another al-Qaida member, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, with false passports.