The man, who identified himself as Papa Mamour Keita, 38, was arrested in Atlanta on Tuesday and charged with obtaining fake Georgia driver's licenses and a manual on transporting hazardous materials.

The court hearing was rescheduled for Tuesday of next week. U.S. Magistrate Court Judge Alan T. Baverman will hold a hearing to determine the man's true identity and whether there is probable cause to detain him for trial.

A former employer here said Keita was a quiet and reliable worker who "never gave anybody any trouble at all."

But Patti Watson, vice president of Atlanta Miscellaneous Steel, also said, "When I heard of all the terrorists and how they just fit into the country and worked very quietly, he somehow fit the profile in my mind."

Keita had been accidentally released after being stopped April 26 in El Paso, Texas, after a Border Patrol agent noted he had improper immigration documents. Keita later was released from an El Paso jail, and on June 7 FBI agents there obtained an arrest warrant charging him with fraudulently obtaining a Social Security number.

The warrant states that when detained a search of the man's belongings found two fake Georgia commercial driver's licenses issued a day apart and a book on how to transport hazardous materials on long-haul trucks.

When detained, the man said he had entered the United States in September 1998 and had lived in Atlanta until July 2001.

The man said that during that time he had worked for two area companies, Atlanta Miscellaneous Steel in Scottdale and Alloy Welding in Lithonia.

Representatives of both firms confirmed Thursday that Keita had worked for them.

Watson of Atlanta Miscellaneous Steel said Keita worked for the company as a welder from Nov. 22, 1999, through July 2001, when he was laid off.

When told of the charges filed against Keita, Watson said everything seemed to fall into place. "I suspected this," she said.

Watson said that several times she received telephone calls from company's checking references for Keita.

One that stood out in particular was a company wanting to hire him as a cross-country truck driver, she said. "When I heard that, it was like putting pieces of a puzzle together."

The man told authorities that he returned to Senegal in July 2001 and returned to the United States the week after Sept. 11. He said he completed an over-the-road truck driving school in February and was hired by Werner Transport.

In April, Werner sent him to a school in Arizona to learn how to transport hazardous materials, Keita said. Officials from Werner did not return calls seeking comment.

INS officials said they sent the man to a detention center in Las Vegas with instructions that he not be released on bond until the case could be investigated.

Federal agents said Keita had been released inadvertently in Texas.

"I am confident that the INS here did what they were supposed to do," said Leticia Zamarripa, an INS official in El Paso. "Now what we have to do is find out what happened when the case was transferred to the Phoenix district."

Russell Ahr of the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Phoenix said that INS agents acted properly and that if a mistake was made it was by an immigration judge.

Staff writer Jenny Allen and the Associated Press contributed to this article.