Link To 9/11 Hijackers Found In Sarasota

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9/11's lingering questions
OUR OPINION: Public deserves answers about Sarasota connection

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/09/1...questions.html

Reports of a previously unknown Saudi connection to the events of 9/11 in Florida cry out for a full airing. There are simply too many troubling questions surrounding the mystery of a hastily-abandoned house in Sarasota days before the attacks to sweep this matter under the rug.

The three-bedroom home in an upscale, gated residential compound was owned by a Saudi financier whose daughter, son-in-law and two young children lived there. They left a few days before 19 terrorists - 15 of whom were Saudis - carried out the plot to attack targets in this country. They left behind three cars, rooms of expensive furniture, food supplies, and other evidence of an abrupt exit, including clothes hanging in the closets, dirty diapers, mail left on the table and so forth.

More worrisome, they also had ties to the al Qaida terrorists. FBI agents, acting on a tip from a neighbor weeks later, found gate logs of vehicle tags showing that a car owned by hijacker Mohamed Atta had visited the compound. More information indicated that he and Ziad Jarrah, another hijacker, were in the car. Agents reportedly linked phone calls from the house to the Saudi attackers.

On Thursday, the FBI issued a statement saying it had followed up the information on the Sarasota house and "there was no connection found to the 9/11 plot." The bureau said it had informed Congress and the 9/11 Commission about its investigation.

That should not be the end of it, however. If there was an investigation, when did it end and what did they find? Who did they tell? What about the visits and phone calls? What was the nature of the connection between the hijackers and those who owned the house and lived there? There may be an explanation without connection to al Qaida, but after 10 years the public deserves answers.

Former Florida Sen. Bob Graham, who chaired the congressional investigation into the hijackings, emphatically disputes the assertion that the FBI informed Congress. That, too, should be cleared up. U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, whose district includes Sarasota, has asked the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee to investigate, and Mr. Graham has asked President Obama's counterterrorism advisor to pursue the matter. Both of those requests should be honored in order to get a public accounting of what this all means.

The Saudi connection to the events of 9/11 has always been a matter of speculation and controversy. Over the years, the Saudi kingdom has itself come under attack by al Qaida terrorists. Its authorities have worked to diminish the influence of Islamic extremism, reportedly updating the scholastic curriculum to eliminate textbook references to jihad, slaying infidels and so forth, and hosting conferences of Islamic scholars to denounce terrorism.

That's progress. Unfortunately, some prominent Saudi officials still don't seem to get it. In an opinion article in The New York Times earlier this week, Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former Saudi ambassador to the United States and former director of its intelligence services, bluntly warned that U.S. failure to support the Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations would be a mistake. The headline: "Veto a state, lose an ally."

A proper regard for the lingering pain of Americans would dictate that the Saudis, of all people, should know better than to issue threats to this country on the anniversary of 9/11.

Ten years later, much about the Saudi connection remains unknown. An investigation prompted by the Sarasota connection would help to clarify matters.

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Graham seeks deeper probe of 9/11 links
FBI records say a Saudi family in Sarasota was 'associated' with the terrorist hijackers, and the former Florida senator believes a new investigation is needed.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/04/1...be-of-911.html

By Dan Christensen and Anthony Summers

New FBI records connecting Saudis who lived in Sarasota before 9/11 to "individuals associated with the terrorist attacks" has spurred a renewed push to find out whether the al-Qaida suicide hijackers who killed almost 3,000 people had help.

"One question that has gone unanswered through the investigation of 9/11 is, 'Did the hijackers operate alone or did they have accomplices who facilitated their ability to act?' " said former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla. "I think the information we have now makes a very strong case that they did."

Graham, co-chair of Congress' Joint Inquiry into the attacks a decade ago, met Tuesday with Senate Intelligence Committee member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., to discuss disclosures in the FBI records released to BrowardBulldog.org.

"He's very interested in getting to the bottom of the events in Sarasota, " said Graham, who plans to meet with senior Obama administration officials next week in Washington.

"The fact is that most of the hijackers spoke no English and had not been in the U.S. before, yet were able to carry out a very complicated plot while maintaining anonymity, " said Graham. "What we've discovered in Sarasota may be another step toward exposing a larger network of Saudi-related individuals who assisted the hijackers."

The FBI records provide new information about an investigation into what took place prior to 9/11 at the upscale home of Abdulaziz al-Hijji and his family in the gated community of Prestancia. Information in the records contradicts prior FBI statements that no evidence was found connecting the al-Hijjis to 9/11.

The names of individuals were redacted before the reports were made public, but are apparent because the documents describe unique, known events. The records were released in response to a specific request for information about the probe at al-Hijji's former residence at 4224 Escondito Cir.

Agents determined the al-Hijjis "fled" their home on Aug. 27, 2001 - two weeks before the attacks - leaving behind three cars, furniture, clothing, toys, food and other items.

"Further investigation of the [name deleted] family revealed many connections between the [name deleted] and individuals associated with the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001, " an April 16, 2002, FBI report states.

The report lists three of those individuals. Two, including one described as a "family member, " were described as students at the nearby Venice airport flight school where suicide hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi trained. The third person lived with some flight students, the report states.

BrowardBulldog.org previously reported that a counterintelligence officer speaking on condition of anonymity said an FBI examination of gatehouse log books and photos of license tags revealed that vehicles linked to the future hijackers visited al-Hijji's residence. Telephone records also reportedly showed indirect ties to the hijackers.

FBI agent Gregory Sheffield was the lead agent on the case. He wrote two 2002 reports that have been released, including one citing connections between al-Hijji and others tied to the attacks, the counterterrorism official said. Sheffield's name is blanked out of the FBI documents, too.

On July 22, 2002, Sheffield interviewed al-Hijji's wife, Anoud, and mother-in-law, Deborah Ghazzawi "regarding possible terrorist activity." The women, who had returned briefly to the home, denied fleeing before 9/11 or knowing certain unnamed individuals, according to the 2002 reports.

Soon after, Sheffield was transferred to the FBI's foreign counterintelligence, or FCI, division and left the area, according to the counterintelligence officer. The transfer suggested Sheffield may have recruited an al-Hijji family member as a source of information, the source said.

If so, that could explain why the FBI has reported finding only 35 pages of records regarding an investigation that records and interviews indicate resulted in the filing of numerous investigatory reports over a period of at least three years.

"I believe that the transfer of Sheffield to the FCI side of the bureau speaks volumes as to the lack of information available. If he was able to recruit a family member, then all information up to that point will be off limits under the National Security Act, " the counterintelligence source said.

Likewise, that scenario could account for a curious statement in another FBI report written after the Sarasota probe became public in September 2011. The report states, "The FBI appears not to have obtained the vehicle entry records of the gated community."

According to the counterintelligence officer, that statement is "not true." In fact, the source said, Agent Sheffield took the Sarasota files, apparently including the gatehouse and phone records, with him when he departed to his new, more-secretive FBI position.

Much remains unclear. Chunks of the released reports are blanked out for national security and other reasons. Four pages were withheld in their entirety.

Graham believes that what happened in Sarasota points to the idea that there was a broader support network of Saudis who provided aid and sympathy for the future hijackers.

Graham cites a "common outline" with events in San Diego, Calif., involving Khalid al-Mihdar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, two of the five Saudi hijackers aboard the American Airlines jet that was flown into the Pentagon.

The Joint Inquiry and 9/11 Commission reports describe how Omar al-Bayoumi, another Saudi living in San Diego, provided extensive assistance al-Mihdar and al-Hazmi, including housing.

One report said al-Bayoumi had access to "seemingly unlimited funding from Saudi Arabia" and that "one of the FBI's best sources in San Diego" reported al-Bayoumi appeared to be an intelligence officer for Saudi Arabia or another foreign power. The FBI also learned that al-Bayoumi "has connections to terrorist elements, " the report said.

"There is no evidence that Bayoumi knew what was going on; just that he'd been told to take care of these men, " said Graham, who has criticized the FBI for withholding key information about what happened in San Diego.

A former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Graham believes a new investigation is now needed to get the truth.

"My goal is to have the investigation reopened and do a full inquiry into the Saudi aspects and then make the results available to the American people, " Graham said.

Such an inquiry should not be led by the FBI, Graham said.

"They are the ones who have significantly been responsible for us not knowing 10 years ago what the Saudi role was by withholding information and withholding witnesses, " he said.

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Graham: Still no records on 9/11 probe
The FBI has been unable to prove that it shared information with Congress about possible links between a Saudi family in Sarasota and some 9/11 hijackers.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/09/1...ds-on-911.html

By Dan Christensen
Special to The Miami Herald

In September, news about a previously unknown FBI investigation into possible ties between 9/11 hijackers and a Saudi family living near Sarasota led the agency to deny there was any connection and assert that it made all of its files available to congressional investigators a decade ago.

But two months later, the FBI has been unable or unwilling to substantiate that it disclosed any information regarding its Sarasota investigation to Congress, says former Florida U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, who co-chaired Congress's inquiry into the terrorist attacks.

"My suspicion is that either, one, the documents don't exist; two, that if they do exist they can't find them; or three, they did find them and they did not substantiate the statements that they've made and that they are withholding them, " said Graham. He has long contended the FBI stonewalled Congress about what it knows about possible Saudi support for the 9/11 hijackers.

The FBI investigation began shortly after 9/11 when residents of the gated community of Prestancia, south of Sarasota, reported the abrupt departure of a Saudi family about two weeks before the attacks. The family left for Saudi Arabia, leaving cars, clothes, and a refrigerator full of food.

Neighbors said agents searched the house. But the most important information came when the FBI examined gatehouse security logs and photographs of license plates, according to then-homeowner's association administrator Larry Berberich and a counterterrorism agent.

They said the security records revealed that the home was visited by vehicles used by 9/11 terrorist leader Mohamed Atta and Ziad Jarrah. Atta piloted the first plane to strike the World Trade Center. Jarrah was at the controls when United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pa.

The counterterrorism agent, who asked that his name not be disclosed, said an analysis of phone records found additional links between the residence and other hijackers and terrorist suspects, including Adnan Shukrijumah, a former Miramar resident who is on the FBI's Most Wanted list.

FBI agents in Tampa and Miami denied that any connection existed between the family and the terrorists.

Graham has said that he and other members and staff of the joint inquiry were not made aware of the Sarasota investigation by the FBI.

Graham asked the FBI in September to provide him with file numbers about the Sarasota inquiry and the dates those records were provided to congressional investigators. Graham said FBI agents produced 10 file numbers. But intelligence committee personnel determined "there was no information in any of the 10 files that was relevant" to the Sarasota investigation, he said.

Graham said, "The FBI asked [that] instead of finding the documents could they brief us instead. I said, 'No, that would not be acceptable.' "

The FBI turned down a Freedom of Information request The Miami Herald and Broward Bulldog that sought records about agents' findings in Sarasota, saying release of the records would be an invasion of the family's privacy.

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Miami Herald joins suit asking FBI for 9/11 documents

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article...9-11-documents

By Michael Pollick
Published: Friday, September 27, 2013 at 1:39 p.m.
Last Modified: Friday, September 27, 2013 at 1:39 p.m.

The Miami Herald Media Co. has joined the Herald-Tribune Media Group in urging a federal judge to make the FBI disclose details of its long-running Sarasota 9/11 investigation.

The two media companies want to be heard in an existing federal lawsuit against the agency by an independent news gathering organization in Fort Lauderdale, Broward Bulldog.

The FBI documents could shed light on the alleged interactions of a high-echelon Saudi family — living in Sarasota's Prestancia neighborhood just before the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon — and three hijacker pilots who trained in Venice about the same time.

The newspapers are seeking to persuade a federal judge that an FBI assertion of privacy interests is outweighed by the public's need to know what happened.

“The (Miami) Herald has covered, and will continue to cover, connections between 9/11 and Florida,” the media company's court filing says. “Several of the 9/11 hijackers had links to South Florida, the Herald's core coverage area.”

“The Herald has grave concerns about the connections between the 9/11 hijackers and the State of Florida,” the filing continues. “More importantly, the Herald would like to examine the thoroughness and outcome of the FBI's investigation, as well as determine whether the FBI misrepresented its findings to Congress or the public.”

U.S. District Court Judge William J. Zloch is presiding over the case, which was initiated in September 2012 by the Broward Bulldog and its Miami attorney Tom Julin.

U.S. attorneys representing the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice already have objected to the Herald-Tribune's request to intervene.

Saudi investigation
In late June, Judge Zloch denied the government's original motion to dismiss the case, filed by the FBI's attorney, assistant U.S. Attorney Carole M. Fernandez.

Zloch went further, asking Julin to describe in writing how the FBI might conduct a more thorough search for information relevant to the Broward Bulldog's Freedom of Information request.

The judge is expected to rule soon on the government's second attempt to get the case thrown out, known as a motion for summary judgment.

Fernandez, the federal attorney, has pointed to government efforts to satisfy Broward Bulldog editor Dan Christensen's request and she has followed up by noting how big a volume of material could still be searched.

She indicated that the FBI's Tampa office alone has hundreds of thousands of pages of documents related to the 9/11 investigation.

“The manual review which plaintiffs are requesting is not reasonable; nor is it warranted,” Fernandez said in an August court filing.

Records from the front gate at Prestancia from that time show that some of the 9/11 hijackers who trained in Venice visited the Saudi family, according to sources cited by the Broward Bulldog and a former security consultant involved in the case who was interviewed by the Herald-Tribune.

What started the back-and-forth over documents was the Bulldog's 10th anniversary 9/11 story, published on the news organization's website and also in the Herald-Tribune and the Miami Herald.

The article revealed details about a large, previously undisclosed FBI investigation centering on 4224 Escondito Circle, the home in Prestancia owned by prominent Saudi businessman Esam Ghazzawi.

His daughter, Anoud, and her husband, Abdulazziz al-Hijji, lived there until two weeks prior to 9/11, before departing suddenly for their homeland. They left food on the counter, a dirty diaper, three vehicles and an empty safe.

“Phone records and the Prestancia gate records linked the house on Escondito Circle to the hijackers,” the Broward Bulldog said.

Within days, the FBI issued a news release seeking to discredit the article's findings and sourcing.

That prompted Christensen to file state and national public record requests.

Those efforts have also drawn another ally. Bob Graham, the former Florida governor and U.S. senator, filed his own highly detailed declaration for the suit in May, in which he suggested that the government is obfuscating.

Graham, a former co-chairman of the 9/11 Commission, had already been trying within two presidential administrations to make public the chapter of the commission's report on how the terrorists were financed and supported.

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9/11 victims' group lauds media suit over Saudi family

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article...r-Saudi-family

By Michael Pollick
Published: Wednesday, October 2, 2013 at 10:07 p.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, October 2, 2013 at 10:07 p.m.

SARASOTA - A support group for families who lost loved ones in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks is applauding the Herald-Tribune and the Miami Herald for intervening in a federal lawsuit that seeks information about a Saudi family who abruptly left Sarasota just prior to the attacks.

The 9/11 Families United to Bankrupt Terrorism contends that the FBI has covered up information that could shed light on alleged Saudi financing of the terror plot, which killed more than 3,000 in New York and outside Washington, D.C.

“Maybe someday soon we’ll finally get to hear the truth,” said Bill Doyle, whose son, Joseph, died when the World Trade Center collapsed a dozen years ago.

“On the one hand, they say they have no evidence connecting the Sarasota Saudis to 9/11,” Doyle — who lived on Staten Island and now resides in The Villages near Orlando — said of the FBI. “On the other hand, they say releasing the information would threaten national security. Both of those things cannot be true. The federal court should not let them get away with it.”

In late September, the Miami Herald joined the Herald-Tribune Media Group in urging a federal judge in Fort Lauderdale to make the FBI disclose details of its long-running Sarasota 9/11 investigation.

The FBI documents could shed light on the alleged interactions between the terrorists and the one-time local family, relatives of well-connected Saudi businessman Esam Ghazzawi.

Ghazzawi owned the home at 4224 Escondito Circle in Prestancia, which was occupied by his daughter, Anoud, and her husband, Abdulazziz al-Hijji, until two weeks prior to 9/11.

When they departed, the couple left food in their refrigerator, dirty diapers lying about, an empty safe and cars in their driveway.

Records from Prestancia’s front gate show that some of the 9/11 hijackers who trained in Venice visited the al-Hijji household on multiple occasions, according to the Broward Bulldog, a Fort Lauderdale-based independent news organization, and a former security consultant interviewed by the Herald-Tribune.

But the FBI has stated publicly that it has cleared the family of any involvement in the plot.

“I don’t understand who they are protecting here,” said Sharon Premoli, a 9/11 survivor and a spokeswoman for 9/11 Families United, which has filed its own lawsuit in New York seeking details about the attacks. “I don’t understand why it is so intense, this shield, after the murder of 3,000 people.”

Premoli was on the 80th floor of the North Tower when a hijacked airliner slammed into her building. “That I am alive is a miracle,” she said.

Broward Bulldog founder Dan Christensen uncovered the Prestancia connection in 2011, and filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Justice Department and the FBI the following year.

Prior to the lawsuit, the FBI had dismissed Christensen’s story as baseless and denied access to investigative files that he requested.

“I think it is important for the newspapers to participate to underscore the importance of the documents we are seeking,” said Christensen’s attorney, Thomas R. Julin. “Now, what you are seeing from the 9/11 families is this is not just a matter of local interest but a matter of national interest.”

Besides ruling on whether the media groups can chime in, U.S. District Court Judge William J. Zloch has two other critical motions to determine: a request to compel the government to do a better search for documents, as outlined by Julin in a court document requested by the judge this summer, and a motion by the government to throw the case out.

“My hope is that he will rule very soon, and that we will get a trial date set,” Julin said. “Then we can get an order requiring disclosure of all these documents that we know exist.”

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Judge lets Herald-Tribune join suit over 9/11 case

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article...9952?p=1&tc=pg

By Michael Pollick
michael.pollick@heraldtribune.com
Published: Thursday, March 20, 2014 at 11:47 p.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, March 20, 2014 at 11:47 p.m.

A federal judge has approved requests by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and the Miami Herald to join in a Freedom-of-Information lawsuit seeking to force the FBI to disclose details of its long-running Sarasota 9/11 investigation.

In a ruling issued Wednesday, Judge William J. Zloch gave friend-of-the-court status to the news organizations, allowing them to add their voices in the suit, initiated by an independent news organization based in Fort Lauderdale, The Broward Bulldog Inc.

“We see that as a good thing, recognizing the public importance of the documents that are being sought,” said the Broward Bulldog's attorney, Thomas R. Julin.

The Bulldog's case seeks case files about a Saudi family who abruptly left Sarasota just before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The Florida nonprofit and its founder and editor, Dan Christensen, filed the original lawsuit in September 2012.

Attorney Carol Jean LoCicero, who represents the Herald-Tribune's parent company, Halifax Media Holdings LLC, has until noon Tuesday to file a brief.

“We are already working on it,” LoCicero said Thursday. “We are trying to show how broad the public interest is in this potential Sarasota relationship related to a national tragedy. The local angle is important. The Tampa field office was involved in investigating leads related to 9/11.”

A support group for families who lost loved ones in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks applauded the Herald-Tribune and the Miami Herald in October 2013 for seeking to intervene in the federal case.

Of particular interest are agency documents that would shed light on the alleged interactions of a high-echelon Saudi family — living in Sarasota's Prestancia neighborhood just before the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon — and three hijacker pilots who trained at Venice Airport around the same time.

Records from the front gate at Prestancia from that time show that 9/11 hijackers visited the home owned by prominent Saudi businessman Esam Ghazzawi and occupied by his daughter Anoud and her husband Abdulazziz al-Hijjii, the Bulldog reported in a 10th anniversary piece published on the news organization's website and also in the Herald-Tribune, the Miami Herald and the Tampa Bay Times.

The article revealed the existence of a large, previously undisclosed FBI investigation centering on 4224 Escondito Circle in Prestancia.

Within days of publication, the FBI issued a press release seeking to discredit the article's findings and sourcing. That prompted Christensen to file state and national public record requests, which have yielded some corroborating information.

Al-Hijjii was still of interest to FBI Florida agent Leo Martinez and Sarasota Sheriff's office detective Michael Otis in April 2004. They interviewed former Sarasota cell phone shop operator Wissam Hammoud, who was in Tampa awaiting federal trial on unrelated but serious charges. A summary of the interview showed up in a document turned over by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

According to Hammoud, al-Hijji's acquaintances included Adnan El Shukrijumah, who in 2010 was federally indicted for his alleged role in a terrorist plot to attack New York City's subway system. The FBI offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to El Shukrijumah's capture, and listed him as one of the “most-wanted terrorists.”

Hammoud told investigators that El Shukrijumah and al-Hijjii showed up together at informal soccer games on property surrounding a Sarasota mosque. Sukrijumah is from the east coast of Florida.

In an interview with the London Telegraph in February 2012, al-Hijjii emphatically denied any connection to hijackers, stating that he loved America.

Al-Hijjii acknowledged knowing Hammoud, but said Shukrijumah's name did not ring a bell.

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Citing broad public interest, newspapers ask judge to deny U.S. bid to block 9/11 lawsuit

http://www.browardbulldog.org/2014/0...k-911-lawsuit/

By Dan Christensen and Anthony Summers
BrowardBulldog.org 911weremember

Two Florida newspapers have asked a Fort Lauderdale federal judge to deny the Justice Department’s effort to shut down a Freedom of Information lawsuit seeking records from an FBI investigation into apparent terrorist activity in Sarasota shortly before 9/11.

BrowardBulldog.org filed the suit in September 2012 alleging the government was improperly withholding records on the matter. The government, after unexpectedly releasing 31 highly censored pages last spring, argued the court should end the case due to national security considerations and asserted that a “reasonable search” had determined “there are no agency records being improperly withheld.”

Court papers filed Tuesday by attorneys for The Miami Herald and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune say they were intervening “to stress that the outcome of this case is a matter of intense interest to the media and the public generally.” The newspapers also argued that “government officials charged with investigating terrorist connections in our state must also be held fully accountable.”

“The Broward Bulldog has provided this court with ample evidence establishing that the FBI could not have possibly conducted adequate searches in response to its federal Freedom of Information Act request,” said the joint brief filed by Tampa attorneys Carol LoCicero and Rachel Fugate. “The stakes are simply too great to accept as a matter of law the government’s vague, often second hand conclusions as to the adequacy of its document searches.”

The newspapers’ friend-of-the-court brief asks U.S. District Judge William J. Zloch not to be “too quick” to accept an agency’s claim that it conducted “an appropriate search,” citing examples where records that should have been produced were not.

One cited case involves the conservative watchdog group, Judicial Watch, which sued in 2012 seeking records about the Obama Administration’s alleged coordination with the producers of Zero Dark Thirty, the motion picture about the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Allegations had been made that the White House provided the filmmakers with access to highly sensitive national security records in order to burnish President Obama’s reputation prior to the 2012 election.

A judge ordered the CIA to produce records about the matter, “but it was only months later that additional ‘overlooked’ documents were produced that included illuminating correspondence among the White House, the Department of Defense and the CIA suggesting a coordinated effort to provide a heightened level of access to the filmmakers and a desire that the administration be portrayed positively.”

Broward Bulldog.org, represented in the suit by Miami attorney Thomas Julin, first disclosed the existence of the FBI’s Sarasota investigation in September 2011.

The story reported how, a decade earlier, the FBI had found direct ties between 9/11 hijackers and a young Saudi couple, Abdulaziz and Anoud al-Hijji, who appeared to have hurriedly departed their upscale home in a gated community in the weeks before 9/11 – leaving behind cars, furniture, clothing, a refrigerator full of food and an open safe in the master bedroom.

Anoud al-Hijji is the daughter of the home’s owner, Esam Ghazzawi, a long-time adviser to a senior Saudi prince. Ghazzawi was also a focus of FBI interest after 9/11 when agents sought to lure him back to the U.S. from Saudi Arabia to close the transaction when the home was sold, according to a lawyer for the homeowner’s association.

Agents searched gatehouse logbooks and license plate snapshots and found evidence that vehicles used by the hijackers, including ringleader Mohamed Atta, had visited the home, according to a counterterrorism agent who spoke on condition of anonymity. A sophisticated analysis of incoming and outgoing phone calls to the home also established links to Atta and other terrorists, including Adman Shukrijumah, the agent said.

Shukrijumah, a former Miramar resident, is currently on the FBI’s “most wanted” list and the State Department is offering a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture.

The FBI publicly acknowledged its investigation but said it had found nothing connecting the al-Hijjis to 9/11.

Former Florida Sen. Bob Graham, who chaired Congress’ Joint inquiry into the attacks, has said the FBI never informed Congress or the subsequent 9/11 Commission about its Sarasota investigation.

The story has taken several twists since news of the investigation first broke.

In February 2012, Florida Department of Law Enforcement documents obtained using the state’s public records law showed that in April 2004 Wissam Hammoud, a now imprisoned “international terrorist associate” then under arrest in Hillsborough County, told the FBI that al-Hijji considered Osama bin Laden a “hero” and may have known some of the hijackers who trained at a flight school in Venice, about 10 miles from the al-Hijji residence. Hammoud also told the FBI then that al-Hijji had introduced him to Shukrijumah at a soccer game at a local mosque prior to 9/11. Hammoud confirmed making those statements in an interview.

Al-Hijji was reached in London in 2012 where he worked for Aramco Overseas, the European subsidiary of Saudi Aramco, the state oil company. He told The Telegraph that he knew Hammoud, but denied any involvement with terrorists. He called 9/11 “an awful crime.”

One year ago, six months after the lawsuit was filed, the FBI suddenly made public 31 redacted pages about its Sarasota investigation. The records flatly contradicted the Bureau’s earlier public statements that it had found no evidence connecting the al-Hijjis to the hijackers. Instead, the FBI records said the family had “many connections” to “individuals associated with the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001.”

The declassified documents tied three individuals, with names blanked out, to the Venice flight school where Atta and fellow hijacker Marwan al-Shehhi trained. One of those individuals was described as a relative of the al-Hijjis, whose names were also redacted.

Last June, the Justice Department moved to end the lawsuit, citing national security. A senior FBI official told the judge disclosure of certain classified information about the Sarasota Saudis “would reveal current specific targets of the FBI’s national security investigations.”

The FBI did not explain how an investigation that it previously said had found no connection between those Saudis and the 9/11 attacks involved information so secret that its disclosure “could be expected to cause serious damage to national security.”

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Judge orders thorough search of 9/11 records, rejects FBI’s bid to end lawsuit

http://www.browardbulldog.org/2014/0...o-end-lawsuit/

By Dan Christensen and Anthony Summers
BrowardBulldog.org fbilogo

A federal judge Monday ordered the FBI to conduct a more thorough search of its vast files to identify documents about its once secret investigation of terrorist activity in Sarasota prior to 9/11.

Fort Lauderdale U.S. District Judge William J. Zloch’s order also rejected a request by the Department of Justice to throw out the Freedom of Information case filed by BrowardBulldog.org in September 2012. Justice has argued that the release of certain information about the matter “would reveal current specific targets” of national security investigations.

The suit alleges the government has improperly withheld information about a local Saudi family’s apparent connections to terrorists including 9/11 hijack pilot Mohamed Atta and Adnan Shukrijumah, the former Broward resident and alleged al-Qaeda figure who’s got a $5 million federal bounty on his head.

“This is a huge step in the right direction,” said Miami attorney Thomas Julin, who represents the four-year-old news organization. “The decision tells the FBI that this federal judge wants to make sure that the truth comes out.”

In his four-page order, Judge Zloch said he would issue a separate order detailing steps the FBI must take to comply with his order requiring the additional records search.

BrowardBulldog.org asked the court in July to compel the additional document search. The suit was filed after the FBI denied the news organization’s record requests under the Freedom of Information Act.

FBI RECORDS CONTRADICT PUBLIC STATEMENTS
Six months after the lawsuit was filed, the Bureau unexpectedly released 35 heavily redacted pages, including four pages that were completely blanked out, and asserted it had no more responsive documents to produce. The declassified pages flatly contradicted earlier public statements by FBI agents in Sarasota and Miami that the decade-old investigation had found no evidence of terrorist activity.

In his order, Zloch noted the government has provided him with un-redacted copies of those pages “for the court’s inspection.” Whether that information played a role in the judge’s decision is not known.

The Miami Herald and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, in a friend of the court brief last week, argued to the court, “The Broward Bulldog has provided this court with ample evidence establishing that the FBI could not have possibly conducted adequate (record) searches.

In the motion requesting a better search, attorney Julin proposed a number of measures the FBI could take to identify records: Use its $440 million Sentinel computer system, employ better word searches and conduct a manual review of all 15,342 documents about its 9/11 investigation, code-named PENTTBOM, said to be stored in the FBI’s Tampa field office.

The FOIA lawsuit seeks FBI records about its investigation of “activities at the residence at 4224 Escondito Circle in the Prestancia development near Sarasota, Florida prior to 9/11/2001 The activities involved apparent visits to that address by some of the deceased 9/11 hijackers.”

TIES TO TERRORISTS, TIES TO ROYALS
The address was the home of Abdulaziz and Anoud al-Hijji until August 2001, when the couple quit their home and returned to Saudi Arabia –leaving behind cars, furniture, clothing, food and other items. Anoud al-Hijji’s father, Esam Ghazzawi, a longtime advisor to a senior Saudi prince, owned the home.

Within hours of the attacks on New York and Washington, the al-Hijji’s neighbors began calling the FBI and other law enforcement agencies to tell them about the couple’s abrupt departure.

BrowardBulldog.org first disclosed the FBI’s Sarasota investigation in September 2011. The story reported how agents who searched Prestancia’s gatehouse found logbooks and snapshots of license plates that provided evidence that vehicles used by the hijackers, including Atta, had visited the home. An analysis of phone calls to and from the home also found links to Atta and Shukrijumah, according to a law enforcement source.

An FBI informant later reported that prior to 9/11 al-Hijji had introduced him to Shukrijumah at a soccer game at a Sarasota mosque.

Records obtained from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement show the FBI continued to investigate until at least 2004, when the informant was interviewed. The Bureau, however, never disclosed the existence of its investigation to either Congress’s Joint Inquiry into the attacks or the subsequent 9/11 Commission, according to former Florida Sen. Bob Graham, who co-chaired the Joint Inquiry.

Graham has accused the FBI of impeding Congress’s inquiry into 9/11.

The 31 pages of FBI records released one year ago say that the Sarasota Saudis who “fled” their home before the attacks had “many connections” to “individuals associated with the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001.”

The records list three individuals, including one identified as a relative of the al-Hijjis, but their names were blanked out. All three, however, were tied to the Venice, Fl. flight school where Atta and fellow hijack pilot Marwan al-Shehhi trained.

Attorney Julin said Monday’s federal court ruling could lead to a better public understanding of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans.

“Maybe now we’ll get a chance to find out what the FBI knew about the Sarasota Saudis and why it did not tell Congress,” said Julin.

[Gold9472]

A conservative judge rebukes FBI as he orders it to find and turn over 9/11 documents

http://www.browardbulldog.org/2014/0...911-documents/

April 6, 2014 at 6:01 am
By Dan Christensen and Anthony Summers, BrowardBulldog.org

Fort Lauderdale U.S. District Judge William J. Zloch has a reputation as a no-nonsense, conservative judge who can be short on patience, but is long on courtroom preparation and does not recoil from speaking his mind.

On Friday, after months of legal wrangling, Zloch spoke his mind for the first time on the FBI’s handling of a Freedom of Information lawsuit by BrowardBulldog.org that seeks records from the Bureau’s investigation into apparent pre-9/11 terrorist activity in Sarasota.

In a stinging, 23-page order, Zloch told the Department of Justice that it had failed to convince him that the FBI’s prior records searches had been “reasonably calculated to uncover all relevant documents,” as courts have said the law requires.

Zloch ordered the FBI to do something it had not done: use its sophisticated, $440 million Sentinel case management system to lead the search for relevant documents while adhering to various court-ordered conditions, including specific automated text searches. The judge gave the Bureau until April 18 – two weeks – to produce photocopies for his private inspection of all documents it identifies.

Zloch’s ruling is a “strong, clear directive to the FBI,” said former Florida Sen. Bob Graham, who in 2002 chaired Congress’ Joint Inquiry into the 9/11 attacks and has pushed Washington to release the FBI’s files about what happened in Sarasota.

“Since 2002 many sources, including the U.S. Senate, have been attempting to get information such as that which is likely to be disclosed under Judge Zloch’s order made available. This is the closest in 12 years that we’ve been to achieving that objective,” said Graham.

A MANUAL REVIEW OF HUGE PENTTBOM FILE
Further, Zloch ordered the FBI to conduct a manual review of all documents in its Tampa field office regarding the Bureau’s investigation of the 9/11 attacks, code-named PENTTBOM. He gave the FBI until June 6 to complete that more time consuming task.

The Department of Justice has opposed any additional search. In court papers filed last August, it argued that a manual review would require “extraordinary effort, time and resources to conduct.”

“The manual review which plaintiffs are requesting is not reasonable; nor is it warranted,” the department argued in court papers filed in August. “The FBI’s Tampa office alone has more than 15,352 documents (serials), which together contain, potentially, hundreds of thousands of pages of records related to the 9/11 investigation.”

Zloch disagreed. He decided a more thorough search is necessary due to “inconsistencies and concerns” about the government’s searches to date, as well as his need to assure himself that “the documents in dispute exist.”

Zloch noted, too, that early FBI assertions that its initial searches had yielded no responsive documents were followed months later, after the lawsuit was filed, by the release of 35 heavily redacted pages. Those pages, some partially blacked out on grounds of national security, contained no investigative reports yet did include some summary information that contradicted prior FBI public statements about the findings of its Sarasota investigation.

AN INVESTIGATION WITH NO DOCUMENTS?
“An investigation took place during this time period that apparently resulted in certain findings, yet seemingly, the search yielded no documentation. This alone moves the court to believe that a further search is necessary,” the order says.

Miami attorney Thomas Julin, who represents the non-profit news organization, said it appears Judge Zloch “definitely wants to get to the bottom of this and doesn’t like the fact that the FBI put out public statements trying to discredit the Bulldog’s reporting…His order makes it sound like he believes the government may be deliberately covering up.”

Zloch’s order goes beyond instructing the FBI to search and produce its own investigative reports. It also requires both the Justice Department and the FBI to “advise the court of any documented communications between defendants and other government agencies concerning the investigation” of the Sarasota Saudis. Again, Zloch wants that information by June 6.

“He’s showing real sensitivity to the likelihood that the FBI is acting under the direction of the Central Intelligence Agency or the National Security Agency,” said Julin. “If the FBI is simply following orders then he is telling the FBI he wants to know what those orders are and from who they are coming, whether it’s the CIA, the NSA or the President.”

The lawsuit was filed in September 2012, after the FBI denied requests under the Freedom of Information Act for copies of the agency’s reports about its Sarasota investigation.

A year earlier, BrowardBulldog.org had first disclosed the existence of the investigation in a story that reported how Abdulaziz and Anoud al-Hijji, a young Saudi couple, had abruptly moved out of their home in Sarasota’s Prestancia development and returned to Saudi Arabia two weeks before September 11, 20001. Anoud’s father, Esam Ghazzawi, a longtime advisor to a senior Saudi prince, owned the home.

Law enforcement focused on the al-Hijjis after suspicious neighbors called following the attacks to report that the couple had appeared to depart in haste, leaving behind their cars, furniture, clothing and even food in the kitchen.

HIJACKERS AT THE GATE
The story reported that agents who later searched Prestancia’s gatehouse found evidence in logbooks and snapshots of license plates that vehicles used by the hijackers, including ringleader Mohamed Atta, had visited the al-Hijji’s home. A law enforcement source said an analysis of phone calls to and from the home also found links to Atta and former Broward resident Adnan Shukrijumah, a fugitive and alleged al-Qaeda leader with a $5 million bounty on his head.

Documents obtained by BrowardBulldog.org from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement stated that a now imprisoned terrorist figure, Wissam Hammoud, told the FBI in 2004 that al-Hijji was an acolyte of Osama bin Laden who prior to 9/11 had introduced him to Shukrijumah at a soccer game at a Sarasota mosque.

Al-Hijj was interviewed last year by the London Telegraph. He acknowledged knowing Hammoud, but denied any wrongdoing.

The FBI never disclosed the existence of its Sarasota investigation to either Congress’s Joint Inquiry into the terror attacks or the subsequent 9/11 Commission, ex-Sen. Graham has said.

In his order, Judge Zloch explained that his doubts about the quality of the FBI’s prior records searches was rooted in part in the “gaps and inconsistencies” he observed in the handful of documents the FBI has produced to date.

He noted, for example, that one FBI document written after the Sarasota story broke in 2011 states that the investigation found no evidence connecting the Sarasota Saudis to the 9/11 hijackers while another, dated April 2002, says authorities found “many connections” between the family and “individuals associated with the terrorist attacks.”

“These statements seem to be in conflict, and there is nothing in defendant’s 35 produced pages that reconciles this stark contradiction,” the order says.

[Gold9472]

Unraveling Sarasota's 9/11 ties
FBI's handling of document requests is unacceptable

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article...te=printpicart

Published: Tuesday, April 8, 2014 at 1:00 a.m.

Instead of following the law and producing documents that could show whether or not Saudis living in Sarasota provided aid and assistance to the 9/11 terrorists, the FBI, a federal judge recently found:

• Provided records with "apparent" and unexplained chronological "gaps."

• Presented to the court "located documents" that "seem incomplete."

• Submitted "summary documents" that "do in fact seem to contradict each other."

The FBI's handling of requests for documents related to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, which had links to locations and venues in Sarasota County, is unacceptable.

We and anyone interested in knowing more of the truth about 9/11 are grateful that U.S. District Court Judge William Zloch has steadily sought to require the FBI to adequately search for, find and release to the court documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act.

In contrast, it's troubling that the nation's top law-enforcement agency would not only be intransigent but would submit documents with gaps and contradictions to a federal court. The fact that the documents sought are relevant to one of the United States' greatest domestic tragedies compounds the concerns.

Saudis in Sarasota

The background:

In September 2011, two independent reporters writing for BrowardBulldog.org reported that a family from Saudi Arabia, who lived in Sarasota County's prestigious Prestancia development prior to September 2001, had connections with individuals associated with terrorism.

The report, reprinted three years ago by the Herald-Tribune, cited documents showing phone calls to the house were made by hijackers who trained in Venice to fly airplanes. The report also said the family was visited by people using a car licensed to Mohammed Atta -- who crashed the first plane into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11.

The FBI subsequently said the family was not "related to any threat nor connected to the 9/11 plot."

Yet neither the FBI nor anyone else has explained why the family, closely related to a prominent Saudi financier, abruptly left its Prestancia home two weeks before 9/11 -- leaving clothes in closets, food in the refrigerator and three cars in the driveway and garage.

Given the involvement of Saudi terrorists in the attacks, and evidence of Saudi financial support for them, the public deserves more than contradictory and incomplete information from the FBI.

The agency's credibility in this matter is not helped by the fact that its investigation of the family was not reported to Congress or mentioned in the independent 9/11 Commission report.

A more thorough search

In September and October 2011, the Broward Bulldog and reporter/editor Dan Christensen went to federal court to demand that the FBI release documents relevant to its investigation of the family. (Subsequently, Halifax Media Holdings, which includes the Herald-Tribune, and the Miami Herald filed "friend of the court" briefs in support of the plaintiffs.)

Judge Zloch, a Reagan appointee, has repeatedly ruled that the FBI is not complying with the Freedom of Information Act. The "gaps and consistencies" in documents provided to the court "underscore the need for a more thorough search," Zloch wrote in an order issued Friday.

The judge went to the trouble of identifying specific search functions for the FBI to perform -- citing the names, phrases and software to be used. Zloch gave the bureau deadlines, including one later this month, for conducting the additional search and submitting the relevant documents for his review.

It's vital to note that it's not known publicly whether the Saudi family had any role leading up to the attacks. But we do know, according to the FBI, that the family had "many connections" with "individuals associated with the terrorist attacks." Yet, according to Zloch, the search conducted by the FBI "yielded no documentation" of the investigation.

"This alone moves the court to believe a further search is necessary," Zloch wrote.

The judge emphasized that the efficacy of the investigation is not the matter before his court. At this point, Zloch wrote, the focus is on whether the FBI has submitted the documents required by federal law.

"Based on the limited information before it now," Zloch stated, "the court is unable to glean the whole truth."

The same can be said, unfortunately, for the nation as it relates to many things that happened before and after 9/11.