Living Islam - Islamic Tradition

Abstract: The United States government has alleged that 19 individuals with Arab names, deemed fanatic Muslims, hijacked four passenger planes on 11 September 2001 and crashed them in a suicide-operation that killed approximately 3,000 people. In this Report, the author shows that there is no credible evidence that these individuals boarded any of these passenger planes. For this reason, it is impossible to support the official account on 9/11. As the US government has failed to prove its accusations against the 19 alleged hijackers, the official account on 9/11 must be regarded as a lie.


The US government alleges that nineteen individuals whose names and photographs have been released by the FBI [3] had booked seats on flights AA11, AA77 (American Airlines) UA93 and UA175 (United Airlines) for that same day, boarded onto those flights, hijacked the aircraft and deliberately crashed these aircraft with passengers and crew on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and on a field in Pennsylvania.

The identities of the nineteen individuals were based, according to one account, on what were described as lucky discoveries made on 9/11 by the FBI. The first was the discovery of two pieces of luggage allegedly owned by Mohammed Atta, the lead suspect, which were not loaded onto flight AA11 at Boston Logan airport. The reason why these bags were not loaded onto the aircraft was never disclosed. According to FBI Special Agent James M. Fitzgerald, who testified at the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the connecting flight from Portland which brought Mohammed Atta and his alleged co-hijacker Abdul Aziz Alomari to Boston, had "arrived too late for the luggage to be loaded onto Flight 11'[4] According to the 9/11 Commission, however, the flight arrived on time at approximately 6:45 A.M., one hour before the scheduled departure of Flight AA11. [5] It has never been revealed who was responsible for the "mistake" that ensured that the bags would not be loaded onto the aircraft. The contents of the luggage enabled FBI agents, as claimed by them, to "swiftly unravel the mystery of who carried out the suicide attacks and what motivated them'. [6]

Among the items reportedly found in Atta's bags were: a hand-held electronic flight computer, a simulator procedures manual for Boeing 757 and 767 aircraft, a slide-rule flight calculator, a copy of the Qur'an and a handwritten testament written in Arabic.[7] According to later testimonies by former FBI agents, the luggage also contained the identities of all 19 suspects involved in the four hijackings, information on their plans, backgrounds, motives, al Qaeda connections and [a] folding knife and pepper spray. [8] According to FBI Special Agent Fitzgerald, Abdul Aziz Alomari's passport was also found in one the bags. [9]

The text of a Atta's, five-page document found in Mohamed Atta's luggage is made public. [Observer, 9/30/2001] The next day, the Independent strongly questions if the note is genuine. It points out the "note suggests an almost Christian view of what the hijackers might have felt" and is filled with "weird" comments that Muslims would never say, such as "the time of fun and waste is gone." If the note "is genuine, then the [hijackers] believed in a very exclusive version of Islam--or were surprisingly unfamiliar with their religion." [Independent, 9/29/2001] Another copy of the document was discovered in a vehicle parked by a Flight 77 hijacker at Washington's Dulles airport. A third copy of essentially the same document was found in the wreckage of Flight 93. Therefore, the letter neatly ties most of the hijackers together. [CBS News, 9/28/2001] The Guardian says, "The finds are certainly very fortunate, though some might think them a little too fortunate." [Guardian, 10/1/2001]

Other incriminating items were also swiftly found at other locations. The 9/11 Commission noted, for example, that a passport of one of the alleged hijackers, Satam Al Suqami, was found near the World Trade Center where a "passer-by picked it up and gave it to a NYPD detective shortly before the ...towers collapsed'[10]. Numerous observers found it hard to believe that such a document could make it undamaged from the pocket of a dead suspect in the burning wreckage within the building to the street and be found miraculously within minutes. A Saudi Arabian driver's license of Ahmad al-Ghamdi, another suspect, "was [also] recovered at the World Trade Center crash site'. A Toyota Corolla registered to alleged hijacker Nawaf Alhazmi was discovered at Washington's Dulles Airport on 12 September. It contained a "four-page letter written in Arabic that was identical to the one recovered from the luggage of Mohammed Atta at Logan Airport', a cashier's check made out to a flight school in Phoenix, four drawings of the cockpit of a 757 jet, a box cutter-type knife, maps of Washington and New York, and a page with notes and phone numbers. [11] In a car rented by alleged hijacker Marwan Alshehhi and discovered at Boston's Logan Airport, the FBI found an Arabic language flight manual, a pass giving access to restricted areas at the airport, documents containing a name on the passenger list of one of the flights, and the names of other suspects. The name of the flight school where Mohammed Atta and Alshehhi studied, Huffman Aviation, was also found in the car. [12] A number of documents purporting to identify the suspects of flight UA93 were reportedly found at that flight's crash site, though no aircraft wreckage was seen there and no drop of blood. [13] The incriminating items included the passport of alleged hijacker Al Ghamdi,[14] alleged hijacker Alnami's Florida Driver's License [15], his Saudi Arabian Youth Hostel Association ID card [16], a visa page from alleged hijacker Ziad Jarrah's passport [17], and a business card of Jarrah's uncle. [18] At the Pentagon crash site, a "Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Student Identity Card" is discovered with alleged hijacker Majed Moqed's name on it. [19]

On September 12, 2001, the FBI was notified by a hotel owner in Deerfield Beach, Florida, that he found a box cutter left in a room left by alleged hijacker Marwan Alshehhi and two unidentified men. The owner said to have found in a nearby trash a duffel bag containing Boeing 757 manuals, three illustrated martial arts books, an 8-inch stack of East Coast flight maps, a three-ring binder full of handwritten notes, an English-German dictionary, an airplane fuel tester, and a protractor. [20]

According to another account, the identities of the alleged hijackers were determined "about two hours after the 9/11 attacks" by the US customs service who "were able to do that [after] they [had obtained] access to the flight manifests of those aircrafts". [21]

And to complete the picture, the night before 9/11, "three men spewed anti-American sentiments and talked of impeding bloodshed" in a bar at Daytona Beach, Florida. According to the manager, John Kap, of the Pink Pony and Red Eyed Jack's Sports Bar, the men said: "Wait "til tomorrow. America is going to see bloodshed." Kap said they spent $200 to $300 apiece on lap dances and drinks, paying with credit cards and then left a business card ... and a copy of the Qur'an at the bar. [22]

The amount and nature of all of that incriminating evidence suggested to a former high-level intelligence official that "[w]hatever trail was left was left deliberately for the FBI to chase."[23] In short, these men did everything they could to make sure everyone knew who they were, or more to the point, to plant incriminating evidence designed to establish the legend of 19 Muslim terrorists.

It is, however, crucial to keep in mind that the discovery of "incriminating" items or simple statements by public officials do not, by themselves, prove that particular persons boarded specific aircraft, hijacked those aircraft and crashed the aircraft at the known sites. The aforementioned findings merely represent circumstantial evidence or hearsay.

In order to prove that particular individuals actually boarded the aircraft and died at the known crash sites, at least three types of evidence could and should have been produced: Authenticated passenger lists (or flight manifests) displaying their names, identification of the suspects as they boarded the aircraft and identification of their bodily remains from the crash sites.

1. The US government did not present any authenticated passenger lists

The primary source used by airlines to locate the next-of-kin of aircraft crash victims is the passenger list (or flight manifest). Passenger lists are also a legal document proving for insurance purposes - that particular individuals boarded an aircraft that subsequently crashed. This is why airlines meticulously check the identities of passengers who board the aircraft. With regard to the four 9/11 flights, American and United Airlines have refused to produce the authentic passenger lists or certified copies thereof. As a consequence, major media outlets published shortly after 9/11 partial and inaccurate lists of passengers, based on hearsay information. The US authorities have also issued inconsistent reports about the number and identities of the alleged hijackers. No document has been issued by the airlines or the US government that certifies the claim that the 19 individuals designated on September 14, 2001 by the FBI as the "hijackers", actually checked-in and boarded the four aircraft that crashed on 9/11.

On 13 September 2001 Attorney General John Ashcroft said that "[b]etween three and six individuals on each of the hijacked airplanes were involved' in the hijackings.[24] On the same day FBI Director Robert Mueller said that a "preliminary investigation indicated 18 hijackers were on the four planes -- five on each of the two planes that crashed into the World Trade Center, and four each on the planes that crashed into the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania'. [25] A day later the number grew to 19. [26] On September 14, 2001, the name of Mosear Caned (ph) was released by CNN as one of the suspected hijackers on "a list of names (...) that is supposed to be officially released by justice sometime later today". [27] His name disappeared a few hours later from the list of suspects and replaced with that of Hani Hanjour when CNN posted a new list of suspects released by the FBI [28]. It was never explained why Caned's name had appeared in the first place and why it was then removed. [29]

According to the CNN of September 14, 2001, "[f]ederal sources initially identified [Adnan] Bukhari and Ameer Bukhari as possible hijackers who boarded one of the planes that originated in Boston." (emphasis added). Yet, a few hours later, CNN issued the following correction: "Based on information from multiple law enforcement sources, CNN reported that Adnan Bukhari and Ameer Bukhari of Vero Beach Florida, were suspected to be two of the pilots who crashed planes into the World Trade Center. CNN later learned that Adnan Bukhari is still in Florida, where he was questioned by the FBI...Ameer Bukhari died in a small plane crash last year." (emphasis added). These names disappeared from later published passenger lists and replaced by new names.

On the very day of 9/11, the FBI, "which has been combing the passenger manifests of all four planes, was already focused on [Amer] Kamfar" as a suspected hijacker. On September 12, at 8:30 AM, eight FBI agents arrived at the door of Henry Habora in Vero Beach, Florida, supposed to be a neighbour of Kamfar, with a photo of Kamfar and asked if it was the same person. [30] The name Amer Kamfar, which apparently was also gleaned from a passenger manifest, disappeared from later published lists of suspected hijackers and replaced by another name.

The Washington Post revealed that the original passenger lists did not include the name of Hani Hanjour who later appeared as one of the alleged hijackers. In its Final Edition of 16 September 2001 the paper explained that his name "was not on the American Airlines manifest for [Flight 77] because he may not have had a ticket.'[31] Yet Hanjour's name appears on a purported passenger list of Flight AA77 released later at the Moussaoui trial, suggesting that the belatedly released list does not represent a copy of the original passenger list but one which was manipulated.

On 12 September 2001, various newspapers published partial passenger lists of the crashed flights. These reports included Jude Larsson, 31, and his wife, Natalie, 24, as passengers aboard flight AA11. [32] Yet on September 18, 2001, the Honolulu Star Bulletin reported that the newspaper had received an email from Jude, apparently alive, notifying of the mistake. [33] According to the paper, "a person claiming to be with the airlines" called Jude's father, a person described as a "known sculptor" in his community, and informed him that his son and daughter-in-law had been passengers on flight AA11. The names of Jude and Natalie Larson then disappeared from publicized passenger lists. Such a mistake would be unthinkable were media reports be based on the original passenger lists. More bizarre is that the names of Jude and Natalie Larson, whose names are not anymore officially listed as flight AA11 victims, are still listed on the National Obituary Archive list of those who died on 9/11. [34] According to the webpage of this Archive, the list "is based on authoritative sources, The Associated Press and funeral home records". In addition, a website dedicated to the victims of 9/11, even includes a photograph of Natalie Larson (Los Angeles) attributed to the Associated Press and to the Boston Herald. [35]

According to New York Times reporter Jere Longman, US authorities and United Airlines initially said there had been forty-five people aboard Flight UA93, then amending the figure to forty-four, claiming that one passenger in coach Marion Britton had bought two tickets. [36] No evidence was presented to corroborate this explanation.

According to Terry Tyksinski, a longtime flight attendant with United Airlines, a customer service supervisor told her that he had observed two passengers leave Flight 93 after hearing an announcement that there will be a five-minute delay in the plane pushing back from the gate. The two first-class passengers were reportedly of dark complexion, "kind of black, not black." According to Tyksinski, the supervisor noted their names and was subsequently twice interviewed by the FBI. [37] No other accounts, including the 9/11 Commission Report, mention this incident. As these individuals presumably checked in with a ticket, their names should have been recorded on the original passenger list of Flight 93. Were these names then removed and a new passenger list compiled?

According to a report by American Airlines to the 9/11 Commission dated March 15, 2004, "some passengers" had boarded AA11 "after the aircraft had pushed back from the gate." Nowhere could we found any information who these "passengers" were, whether they were listed on some passenger list, and how they actually were brought to the aircraft after push-back. [38]

The aforementioned fluctuations in the number and names of the alleged hijackers (and passengers) could not have happened if these declarations had been based on authentic documentation.

In 2006 a seven-page set of faxes purported to represent the original flight manifests was published in a book by Terry McDermott. [39] These released images are of very bad quality and do not appear to be true copies of the original passenger lists (or flight manifests) for at least three reasons: (1) The displayed images reflect pasting together of various sheets; (2) The lists do not include a signature of any official responsible for their authenticity and are not accompanier by a chain-of-custody report; (3) Ziad Jarrah's name is spelled correctly, whereas in the early days after 9/11, the FBI was referring to him as "Jarrahi' as news reports from the time show;[40] (4) The name of Hani Hanjour appears on the AA77 list, whereas the Washington Post reported that his name was not on the American Airlines manifest for the flight (see above); (5) The FBI, responding on April 4, 2007 to the present author's FOIA request for the release of the original passenger lists, wrote that the requested passenger lists of Flights AA11, AA77, UA93 and UA175 were "available publicly through the internet at the U.S. Department of Justice website". [41] This website contains exhibits released at the Moussaoui trial. An examination of Exhibit P200054 to which the FBI provided a link revealed that it does not contain at all true passenger lists, merely slickly presented graphics purporting to reflect the original passenger lists. The present author's prior belief expressed in previous versions of this article that the aforementioned faxes had been released at the Moussaoui trial, is therefore wrong. Contrary to widespread belief, nothing resembling true passenger lists was released at the Moussaoui trial. This could explain the discretion surrounding the alleged release of these lists at the trial and the reluctance of mass media to highlight this newly released "evidence".

According to his testimony to the 9/11 Commission, Robert Bonner, "[o]n the morning of 9/11, through an evaluation of data related to the passengers manifest for the four terrorist hijacked aircraft, Customs Office of Intelligence was able to identify the likely terrorist hijackers. Within 45 minutes of the attacks, Customs forwarded the passenger lists with the names of the victims and 19 probable hijackers to the FBI and the intelligence community."[42] According to Richard Clarke, who served under both President Clinton and George W. Bush as National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism, he was informed by Dale Watson, counterterrorism chief at FBI, on the morning of 9/11 through a secure telephone line that "[w]e got the passenger manifests from the airlines. We recognize some names, Dick. They're al Qaeda." Clarke adds: "I was stunned, not that the attack was al Qaeda but that there were al Qaeda operatives on board aircraft using names that FBI knew were al Qaeda."[43] It also appears strange that Robert Bonner claims to have received a final list of alleged hijackers with 19 names on the morning of 9/11 while Robert S. Mueller, director of the FBI, still claims two days later that they were only 18. [44] The documents reportedly received by Robert Bonner and Dale Watson were never shown in public. It is possible in the light of the aforementioned fluctuations in the number and identities of the alleged hijackers - that what they received had been lists of names deemed "passenger lists" or "manifests" prepared in advance of the attacks and revised by the FBI or another government agency for mysterious reasons before their final release on September 14, 2001.

While the names of all passengers, crew and alleged hijackers were publicized shortly after 9/11 in the media, the FBI and the airlines have consistently refused and continue to refuse to demonstrate that they possess authentic, original, passenger lists (flight manifests), of the four 9/11 flights [45]. A typical response for the refusal to provide a copy of authentic passenger lists, is that a "litigation is pending". As the names of all victims and alleged hijackers have been publicized within days after 9/11, no plausible reason exists for refusing to confirm by releasing the original, authentic, documents information that already exists in the public domain, unless that information is corrupted or fabricated. The most plausible explanation for this refusal is that the release of the authentic passenger lists (if they at all exist) might prove that no Muslims (or at least not the 19 Muslims named by the FBI) boarded the four aicraft that crashed on 9/11. This would in turn undermine the official account about the events of September 11.

2. No witnesses to the boarding of the airliners

A second category of evidence to prove that particular individuals have boarded a particular airplane at a particular gate and a specific time, is eyewitness testimony and security video recordings.

[part 3]

Did anyone witness the boarding of the aircraft?

According to the 9/11 Commission, ten of the nineteen suspects were selected on 9/11 at the airports by the automated CAPPS system for "additional security scrutiny'. [46] Yet no one of those who handled the selectees, or any of the numerous airline or airport security employees interviewed by the FBI or the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on or after 9/11 is known to have seen the suspects. As for flights AA11 and UA175, which reportedly left from Logan Airport, Boston, the 9/11 Commission found that "[n]one of the [security] checkpoint supervisors recalled the hijackers or reported anything suspicious regarding their screening."[47] As for flight AA77, which reportedly left from Dulles Airport, Washington, D.C., the 9/11 Commission wrote that "[w]hen the local civil aviation security office of the FAA later investigated these security screening operations, the screeners recalled nothing out of the ordinary. They could not recall that any of the passengers they screened were CAPPS selectees."[48] As for flight UA93, which reportedly left from New Jersey International Airport, the 9/11 Commission indicated that the "FAA interviewed the screeners later; none recalled anything unusual or suspicious."[49] According to an undated FBI report, the "FBI collected 14 knives or portions of knives at the Flight 93 crash site.'[50] Yet no screener is known to have mentioned coming across a single knife that morning. [51] To sum this paragraph, no airport security employee has testified to have actually seen any of the alleged hijackers.

Normally there would have been airline employees tearing off the stubs of passengers' boarding cards and observing the boarding of the four aircraft at the departure gates. Under the circumstances of 9/11, one would have expected to read international media interviews with these airline employees, or at least some of them, under headlines such as "I was the last person to see the passengers alive". Yet no such interview is known to have taken place. The 9/11 Commission does not mention the existence of any deposition or testimony by airline personnel that witnessed the boarding of the aircraft. Their identities and the role they played on 9/11 remain a secret: As a response to this author's request to interview American Airlines employees who saw off passengers of flight AA77, the airline responded that their identities cannot be revealed for privacy reasons. [52]

The absence of testimonies regarding the boarding process can, perhaps, be explained by a number of anomalies that the 9/11 Commission failed to address. It was, for example, discovered in 2003 by independent investigator Gerard Holmgren and ascertained by the present author that according to the BTS database of the US Department of Transportation (DoT), flight AA11 was not scheduled to fly at all on 11 September 2001 but were scheduled to fly on the preceding and subsequent days. [53] After Holmgren's discovery was publicized on the internet, the DoT hastily added the records for flight AA11 on the 9/11, fraudulently manipulating official records to correspond with the official account on the crime. If flight AA11 did not take off on 9/11, it would mean that passengers, crew (and possibly hijackers) boarded other, unidentified, aircraft. Another discovered anomaly is that according to the BTS database the aircraft, which reportedly crashed on the Pentagon (flight AA77, tail number N644AA), did not depart at all from Dulles Airport, Washington, D.C. as officially reported. [54] A third anomaly is that flight AA11 was initially reported in the media to have departed from Gate number 26, while this particular flight had usually departed from Gate 32. [55] The 9/11 Commission claimed, however, that the flight had departed from Gate number 32. No explanation has been given for these contradictory reports. Testimonies by airline employees would have easily resolved these inconsistencies. The absence or suppression of such testimonies suggests, therefore, that what happened at boarding time is a closely held secret, the revelation of which might help solve the mystery surrounding 9/11.

As no person has testified to have witnessed the boarding process, did perhaps security cameras document it? Apparently none of the three airports from where the 9/11 aircraft reportedly departed had surveillance cameras above the boarding gates. Thus, there exists neither eyewitness testimony nor a visual documentation of the boarding process. This means in plain language that the families of those who had booked flights with one of the 9/11 flights and of the crew of these flights have been prevented from knowing what happened to their loved ones once they arrived at the three airports on the morning of 9/11. Whether they boarded any aircraft, and if so, which, remains uncertain.

Yet public opinion remains convinced that surveillance videos of the boarding process had been shown on TV networks. In fact, what has been shown around the world was not the boarding process of any of the four aircraft but two video recordings, one of which is said to be from Portland airport and the other from Dulles Airport. The Portland video purports to show alleged hijackers Atta and Alomari before they board onto a connecting flight to Boston. Even if this video is authentic and if it actually shows these individuals, it does not show what they did after they arrived in Boston. The other security video recording is said to be from the screening checkpoint at Dulles Airport, Washington, D.C., from where flight AA77 allegedly departed.

Unbelievably, the Boston Herald reported a few weeks after 9/11 that, "Logan International Airport is missing surveillance cameras" Logan officials acknowledged the "deficiency". This is significant because two of the flights originated from Logan airport on 9/11. [56] According to the 9/11 Commission's staff, the Newark International Airport, from which flight UA93 reportedly departed, did not either have such equipment [57]. But this claim has been contradicted by Michael Taylor, president of American International Security Corporation who claims that security cameras had been installed at that airport. [58] The video recording that has been shown widely purports to show the alleged hijackers of flight AA77 pass through the security checkpoint at Dulles Airport, Washington, D.C. This recording was not voluntarily released by the US government, but was forced out in 2004 by the Motley Rice law firm representing some survivors' families, under the Freedom Of Information Act. [59] This video recording was released as an exhibit by the prosecution in the Moussaoui trial. [60]

Airport security manager Ed Nelson of Dulles Airport, Washington, D.C., told authors Trento & Trento that shortly after arriving at the airport, the FBI confiscated a security tape from a checkpoint through which the alleged hijackers had passed before boarding the plane: "They pulled the tape right away." They brought me to look at it. They went right to the first hijacker on the tape and identified him. They knew who the hijackers were out of hundreds of people going through the checkpoints. They would go "roll and stop it' and showed me each of the hijackers." It boggles my mind that they had already had the hijackers identified." Both metal detectors were open at that time, and lots of traffic was moving through. So picking people out is hard." I wanted to know how they had that kind of information. So fast. It didn't make sense to me."[61]

Jay Kolar, who published a critical analysis of the publicly released video recording,[62] pointed out that it does not have a time stamp on it, nor the camera number. Security videos typically record such identifying information automatically in order to allow the determination of the when and where. Such recordings are worthless without this data. Aside from the dubious authenticity of this recording, it does not show who boarded the aircraft but only a handful of individuals who appear to pass a security checkpoint at an unknown time and location.

According to Lewis Schiliro, the former assistant FBI director in charge of the New York field office from 1998 to April 2000, cited by the New York Times of September 13, 2001, FBI agents "examined footage from dozens of cameras at the three airports where the terrorists boarded the aircraft."[63] According to the 9/11 Commission Staff Report, Logan Airport's "security checkpoints and gate area were not monitored by video surveillance equipment at that time."[64] Either of these statements must be false.

3. No boarding passes

To ensure that all checked-in passengers actually board the aircraft, American Airlines still used on September 11, 2001, boarding cards with a stub to be torn at the gate by airline employees.. These stubs include the names of the passengers. The 9/11 Commission Staff report,[65] which mentions specifically that Mohammed Atta received a "boarding pass" at Portland airport, does not mention boarding passes in connection with flights AA11, AA77, UA175 and UA93 as if such documents did not exist. In footnote 62 to Chapter I of its Final Report, the 9/11 Commission mentions to have received "copies of electronic boarding passes for United 93", whatever that means, and in footnote 74 "copies of boarding passes for United 93". None of these documents were released. According to the 9/11 Commission Staff report, "[t]he records for Flight 11 indicated that some passengers had boarded after the aircraft had pushed back from the gate."[66] It is not known who these passengers were and whether their names appear on any official list. We have discovered one third-hand report where boarding cards were mentioned. It is a paragraph in a book by Tom Murphy "Reclaiming the Sky". It tells the following story:

A United Airlines manager finds that a gate agent has already singled out boarding passes belonging to four suspicious passengers who were on Flight 93. Terri Rizzuto is the United Airlines station manager at Newark Airport, from where Flight 93 departed. Some time after hearing that this plane has crashed, she speaks on the phone with the FBI, which is requesting the plane's manifest and its Passenger Name Record (PNR). After arranging permission to release these, she goes to gate 17, from where she knows Flight 93 departed, wanting to talk to her staff there. When she arrives, a supervisor hands her four boarding passes. The supervisor tells her they are, "The men, who did this maybe,' and points her toward one of the gate agents who had boarded the passengers onto the flight. When Rizzuto asks the gate agent, "How do you know?" he replies: "They were too well-dressed. Too well-dressed for that early in the morning. And their muscles rippled below their suits...and their eyes." However this report of men with rippling muscles contradicts the 9/11 Commission's description of the so-called "muscle" hijackers on the four targeted planes: They, "were not physically imposing," with the majority of them being "slender in build."

It should be noted that no FBI or media interview of Terri Rizzuto could be located, in order to confirm this story. The identities of the supervisor and the gate agent mentioned in the story are unknown.

4. No proper identification of the "hijackers'" bodily remains

According to the official account, the 19 hijackers died in the crashes at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and at the crash site near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Yet, there is no positive proof that they did. There is no indication that a proper chain of custody [67] between the crash sites and the final disposition of bodily remains had been established by the FBI, as required in criminal cases. The 9/11 Commission did not refer to any such documentation.

[part 4]

Unidentified officials spoken to by The Times (U.K.) in October 2001 expected that the bodies of the 9/11 suspects would be identified "by a process of elimination'[68]. They did not explain why they did not expect a positive identification of these bodies.

Chris Kelly, spokesman of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP), where the identification of the victims' remains from flights AA77 and UA93 took place, said that the authorities were reluctant to consider releasing the hijackers' bodies: "We are not quite sure what will happen to them, we doubt very much we are going to be making an effort to reach family members over there.'[69] He did neither explain why no efforts would be made to locate the families of the alleged hijackers, nor why AFIP could not use comparison DNA samples from known locations in the United States where the alleged hijackers had lived. According to Llonald Mixell, landlord of one of the alleged hijackers, Alomari, in Vero Beach, Florida, the FBI "searched the Omari home [and] agents left a list of materials seized, including hair samples and air conditioning filters."[70] According to Jeff Killeen, spokesman for the FBI field office in Pittsburgh, "there haven't been any friends or family members to try to claim to remains of [the hijackers]." [71] Yet the family of alleged hijacker Ziad Jarrah in Lebanon was reported as early as September 16, 2001, to be "ready to cooperate with the authorities."[72] They did not believe the allegation that Ziad was a terrorist. The US authorities did not respond to this offer of cooperation. In mid-August 2002, a new report on the victims' remains noted the DNA still had not been checked, because "little attention has been paid to the terrorists' remains."[73] While the AFIP announced to have positively identified the human remains of all "innocent' passengers and crew from the flights, they did not identify the remains of any of the alleged hijackers. Kelly said later: "The remains that didn't match any of the samples were ruled to be the terrorists'. [74] Somerset County coroner Wallace Miller said that the "death certificates [for the suspected hijackers] will list each as 'John Doe'". [75]

Among documents transmitted to the 9/11 Commission and released in 2009, one document contains the claim by the FBI that DNA profiles provided by the German Federal Police (BKA) to the FBI from Ziad Jarrah's girl friend in Germany (Aysel Sengun). "matched the sample of one of the sets of unknown human remains". [76] The document was found at the National Archives by History Commons contributor paxvector, and posted at the History Commons site at Scribd.

Actually, the aforementioned statement does not explicitly say where the "unknown human remains" were found, but merely implies by juxtaposition with another paragraph that these remains were found at the crash site of Flight UA93 in Pennsylvania.

The FBI claim, just recently discovered, cannot be considered as a proof that Ziad Jarrah participated in the crime of 9/11. First, even if Ziad Jarrah had actually died at the crash site, it would not necessarily imply that he piloted the crashed aircraft. Other evidence would be needed to substantiate such an allegation.

Secondly, the FBI document in question was not signed, dated or otherwise authenticated. It was not either accompanied by a chain-of-custody report that would document the integrity of the specimen from the point of collection to the final results. The legal status of this document is therefore inconclusive. Additionally, four distinct reasons regarding the alleged crash of Flight UA93 converge to throw doubt on the claim that a passenger aircraft actually crashed in Pennsylvania:

(a) Local residents who rushed to the crash site at Shanksville reported to have been surprised to see no signs of an aircraft crash, no jet fuel smell, no bodies, just a hole in the ground. [77] According to Assistant U.S. Attorney General Patrick A. Rose, representing the FBI, no attempt was made by the FBI to formally identify the aircraft. The justification he provided was that "[t]he identities of the airplanes hijacked in the September 11 attacks was never in question."[78]

(b) According to the FBI, about 95 percent of the aircraft was recovered from the crash scene. [79]The FBI did not forward the wreckage to the National Transportation Safety Board for a mandatory crash investigation but "since [it] had no more use for it', turned it over, 12 days after the crash, to United Airlines [80]. Photographers were not allowed to document the recovery of the aircraft. No photographs of the recovered wreckage exist in the public domain.

(c) After weeks of combing the area, searchers found "about 1,500 mostly scorched samples of human tissue totalling less than 600 pounds' or about 8 percent of the total combined bodily weight of the aircraft's passengers, crew and hijackers.[81]

(d) The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) carried out the identification of the victims from the crash of flight UA93 after a "behind-the-scenes tug of war' between the FBI and the Virginia Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. Fierro, whose department was legally responsible for such work. [82]Attorney General John Ashcroft had to formally relieve her department of its responsibilities in this case. [83]It was never explained why it was crucial to have such identifications conducted under the authority of the armed forces.

A detailed and throughly documented study by Paul Thompson suggests that there were actually more than one Ziad Jarrah. [84] In that case, the very identity of the alleged hijacker Jarrah would be questionable. For the present purposes, the alleged identification of Ziad Jarrah's remains must be considered as dubious, particularly because no other evidence corroborates the boarding of the aircraft.

As for the remains of the suspects who allegedly flew AA11 and UA175 into the Twin Towers, a spokeswoman for the New York Medical Examiner's Office, where the identification of the WTC victims took place, said to have received from the FBI in February 2003 "profiles of all 10 hijackers ...so their remains could be separated from those of victims." She added: "No names were attached to these profiles. We matched them, and we have matched two of those profiles to remains that we have."[85] In 2005, the number of matched samples increased to three. [86] Robert Shaler's medical examiner's forensic unit in New York could not identify the three by name. "No names, just a K code, which is how the FBI designates 'knowns,' or specimens it knows the origins of," Shaler wrote. "Of course, we had no direct knowledge of how the FBI obtained the terrorists' DNA." His statement was echoed later by his deputy, Howard Baum: "We had no idea where the profiles came from or how they were developed."[87] In 2009, Newsweek interviewed again Rober Shaler and others who continued in their efforts of identifying victims of 9/11 and the remains of the "hijackers". Yet, in spite of these efforts, "1,126 of the 2,751 victims from the World Trade Center and five individuals from the Pentagon have yet to be identified at all--none of their remains and no traces of their DNA have been found."

No explanation was given where and how the FBI secured the "profiles" of these 10 individuals, why it took so long to hand them for identification and why they could not be identified by name. It is important to remember that according to the official account the alleged hijackers left numerous identifying documents and artifacts (see introductory section of this essay) including personal items, that were "luckily" found by the FBI, and from which DNA comparison samples could have been extracted to permit at least the positive identification of some of these individuals.

On August 18, 2009, the New York Times reported that it is possible to "fabricate DNA evidence, undermining the credibility of what has been considered the gold standard of proof in criminal cases."[88] According to this report, scientists in Israel "also showed that if they had access to a DNA profile in a database, they could construct a sample of DNA to match that profile without obtaining any tissue from that person." For law-enforcement authorities to fabricate DNA evidence demands, obviously, that experts willingly participate in serious crime and risk thereby long prison sentences, if found out. This may explain why no attempts were made to fabricate DNA evidence in order to prove the presence of bodily remains of the 19 alleged Muslim hijackers at the crash sites.

The lack of positive identification of the alleged hijackers' bodily remains, compounded by the lack of an established chain of custody of these remains, means that the US authorities have failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the alleged hijackers died on 9/11 at the known crash sites.

5. Conclusion

[part 5]

As shown above, the US authorities have failed to prove that the 19 individuals accused of the mass murder of 9/11 had boarded the aircraft, which they allegedly used to commit the crime. No authenticated, original, passenger lists, bearing their names, have been released; no one is known to have seen them board the aircraft; no video recordings documented their boarding; no boarding pass stub is known to exist; and there is no actual proof that the alleged hijackers actually died at the known crash sites, because their bodily remains were not positively identified (except for one dubious case) and no chain-of-custody report accompanied these remains.

In the months following 9/11, reports appeared in mainstream media that at least five of the alleged hijackers were actually living in various Arab countries. [89] These reports led to speculation that the identities of some of the hijackers were in doubt. Typical of such reports is an Associated Press dispatch of 3 November 2001, which states: "The FBI released the names and photos of the hijackers in late September. The names were those listed on the planes' passenger manifests and investigators were certain those were the names the hijackers used when they entered the United States. But questions remained about whether they were the hijackers' true identities. The FBI has not disclosed which names were in doubt and [FBI Director] Mueller provided no new information on the hijackers' identities beyond his statement to reporters." The 9/11 Commission did neither address at all these doubts nor the reports about the "living hijackers".

On September 14, 2001, the FBI released the names of the 19 individuals "who have been identified as hijackers aboard the four airliners that crashed on September 11, 2001". [90] On September 27, 2001, the FBI released photographs of these 19 individuals. Withdrawing from its unqualified statement of September 14, the new press release said these were photographs the FBI merely "believed to be the hijackers of the four airliners". [91] Yet for most names no birth date, birthplace or specific residence is given despite the apparent availability of such data on visa application forms and other documentation possessed by the FBI. The FBI webpage provides the following caveat: "It should be noted that attempts to confirm the true identities of these individuals are still under way." This statement, issued on September 27, 2001, is still valid today, anno 2008, because the webpage has not been updated since it was initially posted and remains, therefore, the US government's official position that their identities are in doubt. Accordingly, a significant difference exists between the official position of the US government, as reflected by the website of the FBI, regarding the identities of the alleged perpetrators of the crime committed on 9/11 and the popularized version parroted by politicians and the media about the guilt of 19 Muslims for the mass murder of 9/11. The 9/11 Commission has studiously avoided the question of the alleged hijackers' identities. It must be added, however, that the aforementioned statement is deliberately deceptive, because there is no hard evidence that any person actually hijacked the airliners and crashed them on the known sites.

Not everyone is convinced that the above account disposes of the question whether or not Muslim fanatics hijacked planes on 9/11. Some people claim that callers from the aircraft actually described the hijackers as Arabs and even mentioned their seat numbers. Such electronically transmitted evidence would have strengthened the official allegations if it had been supported by solid primary evidence, namely that these "hijackers" had actually boarded these aircraft and died at the known crash sites. Absent this primary evidence such secondary evidence cannot be considered as the proof for the presence of these "hijackers" on the aircraft. Additionally, numerous questions remain unanswered regarding the location from which the phone calls were made and their authenticity. [92]

Another recurring counter-argument is that a man claiming to be the notorious terrorist Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, reportedly detained at the Guantanamo base, had confessed to be the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Here again, in the absence of primary evidence proving that the 19 "hijackers" actually boarded the aircraft which they hijacked and crashed, such claims by someone whose identity is shrounded in mystery and who was no eyewitness to the events of 9/11 cannot supplant primary evidence.

More than seven years have elapsed since the events of 9/11. The U.S. government had in those years sufficient time to prove the identities of the persons who allegedly boarded and crashed airplanes on 9/11, if any. If the official account on 9/11 were true, the U.S. government, more than anyone else, would have trumpeted this evidence in order to prove to the world, once and for all, who committed the crime. No one would have benefitted more from publicizing such evidence than the U.S. government.

While it is theoretically possible that the U.S. government possesses the evidence that would prove its accusations against the 19 named "hijackers", such possibility becomes less and less plausible as time passes. The total absence of evidence proving the guilt of Muslims for the crime of 9/11 gives rise to the following observations:

(a) Due to the lack of evidence regarding the guilt of the 19 named Muslims for the crime of 9/11, it is unconscionable to claim that Muslims (or al Qaeda) committed this crime. Any such accusations or insinuations amount to slander and possibly racial incitement.

(b) In view of harmful policies pursued by the U.S. government on the base of allegedly secret evidence, it is politically irresponsible to accord the US Government the benefit of the doubt by presuming the existence, albeit hidden, of incriminating evidence against Muslims for the crime of 9/11.

(c) The lack of evidence regarding the boarding of the four airliners that reportedly crashed on 9/11 and the failure of the U.S. government to formally prove its case, justify suspicion about its complicity in the crime of 9/11 and its cover-up.

The crime of 9/11 has served to justify two wars of aggression by the United States, an indefinite and global "war on terror", the imposition of the PATRIOT Act, spying of the public, and serious violations of international law. Many governments have colluded in these violations and endorsed U.S. lies regarding the events of 9/11. The continuous reliance on the official account regarding 9/11 therefore threatens international peace and security. The above account should therefore prompt all those who are concerned by human rights violations and the threat to international peace and security, to join in demanding the full truth on the events of 9/11.

END

Elias Davidsson's website is www.juscogens.org

[1] The author can be reached at eliasdav (at) t-online (dot) de

[2] This paper is a "work-in-process". It will be amended as new evidence is coming to light. You can obtain the newest version from the author. Last revision 28 December 2009.

[3] FBI, Press Release, 27 September 2001. Available at - expired link (before 2023-02-01) www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel01/092701hjpic.htm

[part 6]

[4] United States of America v Zacarias Moussaoui, U.S. District Court, Alexandria Division. Cross-examination of FBI Special Agent James M. Fitzgerald. March 7, 2006, 10:00 A.M. Transcript p. 38. Available at http://cryptome.org/usa-v-zm-030706-01.htm - expired link (before 2021)