Probe into prison shooting looks at possible Hamas link

The Jordanian U.N. policeman killed three American corrections officers.
PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) -- Authorities are investigating whether a Jordanian U.N. policeman who killed three American corrections officers in a gunbattle at a Kosovo prison had links to the Palestinian militant group Hamas, a senior NATO official said.
As investigators tried to pin down Sgt. Maj. Ahmed Mustafa Ibrahim Ali's motive, a clearer picture of the April 17 attack emerged last week. Witnesses, U.N. officials, medical personnel and NATO officers, in interviews with The Associated Press, described a scene in which the officers were trapped between a locked gate and Ali's assault rifle.
Eleven officers were wounded before the officers shot and killed Ali, a Palestinian from Jordan. No one is certain what prompted him to open fire, but a survivor said Ali was smiling during his shooting spree, a U.N. source familiar with the investigation said.
Possible links
The attack came three days after President Bush endorsed a plan by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and back the permanence of some Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The plan rules out resettling Palestinian refugees in Israel.
A senior NATO official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that besides the investigation into any links with Hamas, authorities were examining a trip Ali took to Saudi Arabia only a month before he joined the mission in March to see if it might be connected to the attack.
Jordan's government said Ali, 30, was a distinguished member of his homeland's special police unit and had been decorated for helping to ward off an attack on the Israeli Embassy in the Jordanian capital, Amman. The United Nations has refused to discuss details of the investigation.
Sequence of events
The attack began at the end of the officers' first day at work. Sharing small talk, the officers piled into two vans and a sport-utility vehicle and drove to the gate. That's when Ali opened fire.
Bullets pierced the vehicles. Kim Bigley, a prison warden from Paducah, Ky., died in the driver's seat. Gary Weston of Vienna, Ill., pushed Michelle Lindo of Haslett, Mich., out of the line of fire, saving her life. Seconds later, gunshots shattered Weston's skull, and he later died.
Lynn Marie Williams, 48, of Elmont, N.Y., was also fatally wounded by the gunfire.
The other officers pulled their pistols and sprang for cover. An Austrian officer in one of the outlying buildings, Andreas Pumpa, heard the shooting and ran toward it, only to run into Ali, who sprayed his legs with gunfire.
The officers exchanged fire with their attacker, who was armed with an M-16 automatic rifle. Blocked by the gate, and with buildings on either side, the officers were trapped.
Ali mowed down a line of officers scrambling toward a wall. One of those wounded may be paralyzed.
Confusion
Inside the prison, people were confused. Several officers raced to the exit, but rounds began to pound into the door. With the only way out blocked, they hit the floor.
Three hundred yards away, in what the officers later called the killing zone, the Americans realized no help was on the way.
Finally, they got a break: Ali's weapon jammed. As he scrambled to clear it, the corrections officers counterattacked, managing to get into the guard shack where Ali's four subordinates cowered.
They seized the Jordanians' weapons and attacked Ali with equal firepower: His body took 16 rounds.
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