The 9/11 Commission v. 19 Named Muslims: A Trial in Absentia

By Gary Wenkle Smith

Within a few hours after the 9/11 attacks, our government named a group of 19 Muslim men as the principal players in the most devastating attack on this country--even more so than Pearl Harbor, as it was mostly civilians who were murdered on 9/11, unlike the mass murder of our sailors by another military power. Further, in addition to approximately 3,000 murders, there could easily be many counts of attempted murder[1] charged, as well. Assuming an indictment is issued, there will undoubtedly be dozens of kidnapping charges, some major theft counts, destruction of public and private property, and sundry other charges arising out of the death and destruction of that day's events. Of course, the principal charge will be the conspiracy to commit these crimes. The 9/11 Commission Report, frequently referred to as the Kean-Zelikow Report[2], has concluded that the 19 named Muslims were the operatives of Osama bin Laden, and that they conspired to hijack airliners and commit the atrocities of 9/11.

I will proceed with this article as though I had been appointed to present a defense for these 19 men [3]. I want to, first of all, read all of the "discovery" in the case. I am primarily concerned with reviewing any and all evidence--either direct or circumstantial--supposedly linking my clients to the crimes charged. However, any competent trial lawyer should always rely upon his own experts and investigators for discovery of evidence not provided by the government. Therefore, as part of my preparation of the defense in this case, I intend to rely upon some of the experts who disagree with the Commission's findings, such as Dr. David Ray Griffin[4], who has done extensive research on 9/11, and has presented compelling evidence of a government cover-up, as well as government complicity in the events of 9/11. I intend to call Dr. Griffin as witness at trial, and will provide you with a review of some of his anticipated testimony.

Before I begin reviewing the evidence with you, I want to remind you, as the prospective jurors, that in America we proceed in all criminal cases with the "Presumption of Innocence" as our foremost guiding principle, which demands that all defendants in America are presumed to be innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt--and that all defendants are entitled to a "fair and public" trial, with a jury of their peers[5]--a jury that is to decide guilt or innocence entirely on evidence presented. What this means in a practical sense is that if I asked you to vote right now, each of you must vote not guilty, as there has been no evidence introduced at trial. If you cannot, either because you have seen what you believe to be conclusive evidence of my client's guilt, or, because you believe that my clients are not entitled to a fair trial, you should be excluded from the jury for "cause". For those of you who remain, I ask you to remember the presumption. Finally, in order to convict, you will be required to find each of the defendants guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, which is the highest standard of proof in the law. I will discuss this standard of proof with you more thoroughly at my Closing Argument.

I am also looking for "Brady" discovery[6], which means that the government must provide the defense with all known "exculpatory" evidence. Experience has taught me that in most cases I can anticipate this will be done. However, a review of the Commission Report indicates that considerable Brady material was not provided. If this was deliberate, this could be grounds for a dismissal of all charges. However, rather than asking for a dismissal, and thereby leaving the question of innocence or guilt unresolved, we will proceed as though going to trial, dealing with the issues related to exculpatory evidence not provided, for you, the jurors, to decide. If it is shown that the government deliberately suppressed such evidence, I will ask you to consider that as evidence not only of the innocence of my clients, but of the guilt or complicity of the Commission and the government in the a cover-up as to what really happened, as I consider it reasonable to ask you to look at those who hide evidence as having a malevolent purpose in so doing.

In reviewing all of the evidence provided by the government, I will begin to outline the elements of the various crimes, and then add the evidence into the outline as it tends to support each particular crime charged, if there is any such evidence. I will also include the exculpatory evidence in the same manner. Therefore, the conspiracy allegations will be the first area of review, as the conspiracy had to have been formed before the crimes were committed[7].

I. THE 19 NAMED MUSLIMS: The Commission's Case
The Commission has reported that the 19 hijackers were all Muslims, and most of them Saudi citizens. Probably every American has seen the faces of these men, as they were frequently shown in the papers and on the television stations for many days after 9/11. Whether anyone has ever identified any of them as passengers on any of the flights that were allegedly hijacked on 9/11 is another question. As David Ray Griffin points out in "The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions"[8], (which I will henceforth simply call "Omissions and Distortions") although the 9/11 Commission claimed that all of my clients names were on the flights' manifests, it could be seen when the flight manifests of the four hijacked planes were made public, that none of them contained any Arab names.[9] Thus, we have the first pieces of exculpatory evidence, as well as suppression of the same, as the Commission did not report the existence of this evidence. It is of great significance to note that the flight manifests for the four hijacked airliners were not part of the Commission report. In addition to not being named on any of those manifests, six of my clients, remarkably enough, have been reported to be alive and well in other countries.[10] These reports have been broadcast by credible sources, including the British Broadcasting Corporation. The Commission, however, far from providing any reason to consider these reports false, failed even to mention their existence. On the contrary, the Commission discussed specific information about the involvement of a couple of these men in the hijackings, even speculating that one them may have stabbed one of the flight attendants on Flight 11[11]. It is hard to imagine that the Commission was unaware of the evidence that some of my clients are still alive. I ask you, the jury, to consider that the Commission suppressed the evidence that some of these men are still alive--which, of course, means that the government's story about their participation in suicide missions on 9/11 is false.

Moreover, the case of the man alleged to have been the ringleader of the hijackers, Mohamed Atta, presents several anomalies. As with each of my clients, he was alleged to be a devout Muslim. The Commission claimed he was so devout as to be fanatic. As such, the use of alcohol would be strictly forbidden. However, Mr. Atta was known to frequent bars, engage in sexual activities with dancers at strip clubs, and to make numerous visits to Las Vegas where he was partying.[12] This information, which was reported in the Wall Street Journal, among other places, was ignored by the Commission. It even claimed that there was no explanation for the trips to Las Vegas. The obvious inconsistency between the alleged behavior and the behavior typical of devout Muslims is most significant. I implore you as jurors to ask why the Commission failed to report these facts.

Further, it was reported by the Commission that Mr. Atta packed his Will, his passport, his international driver's license[13], a copy of the Koran, and other personal items to take with him on a plane that was going to be used as a weapon, and hence be completely destroyed. Oddly enough, those items were somehow not loaded on Flight 11, the plane he purportedly hijacked, but instead were left as evidence to be discovered. Not only is this a bizarre coincidence, but strange indeed as Mr. Atta's name was not on the plane's passenger manifest that was made public. The Commission does not mention these odd but important facts. Are you, the jury, interested in knowing why such evidence was not considered?

II. THE HIJACKED AIRLINERS
Now, let us view the situation on the morning of September 11, 2001. We have four commercial airliners that have been hijacked--American Airlines Flight 11; United Airlines Flight 175; American Flight 77, and United Airlines Flight 93. There is an abundance of information indicating that these planes were hijacked, and that this was known for a significant period of time as to each before three of them were used as weapons, and Flight 93 crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.

Flight 11 took off from Boston at 7:59 a.m., and hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46:40 a.m. The first sign of hijacking reportedly occurred at 8:14 a.m. Almost 33 minutes more would pass before Flight 11 hit the Tower.

Flight 175 departed from Boston's Logan Airport at 8:14 a.m. We have all seen the impact of this flight.[14] According to the timeline issued by NORAD a week after 9/11, the probable hijacking of this flight was reported to NORAD by the FAA at 8:43. According to the Commission, the FAA did not even begin to suspect a hijacking until 8:51. So, depending on which story one accepts, at least 12 and perhaps 20 more minutes passed before the plane flew into the World Trade Center.

Flight 77 took off from Dulles Airport at 8:20 a.m. It is claimed that Flight 77 hit the west wing of the Pentagon at about 9:38 a.m.--over an hour after it left the airport.

Flight 93 took off from Newark at 8:42 a.m. At 9:16 a.m. the flight is reported as a hijack. At 10:06 a.m. the plane crashes in a field in Pennsylvania.

Answering some of the obvious questions regarding why these planes were in the air so long, while it was known--or suspected--that they were hijacked requires some detailed analysis of our nation's defense systems, which analysis has been carried out by many authors and researchers. In his book "Omissions and Distortions", Dr. Griffin shows that we have now been given three different stories as to why our military failed to intercept these flights before they crashed. But regardless of which of these three stories, if any, is true, none of the evidence shows that my clients were on any of the above named airplanes. Indeed, there is good reason to conclude that at least some of them were not.

III. THE ATTACK ON THE PENTAGON
Let us turn to the Commission's claim that another of my clients, Mr. Hani Hanjour took over as the pilot of Flight 77, and then flew it into the west wing of the Pentagon. As to his piloting skills, the Commission gave conflicting reports. He was either the worst pilot, or the most highly skilled. The Commission reported both. However, all the evidence reported elsewhere indicates that he was a terrible pilot. For example, it was reported by some of his fellow flight school attendees that he was ‘a terrible pilot.[15] The Commission concluded that Mr. Hanjour was "the operation's most experienced pilot"[16]

The overwhelming evidence that Hanjour was a terrible pilot, who could not even fly a small plane, is of extreme importance. Why? Because the aircraft that hit the Pentagon was shown by radar to have executed a downward spiral that involved a 330-degree turn made at high speed. This maneuver, we have been told, would have required the skills of a "fighter jet maneuver", and the plane was reported to have been flown with "extraordinary skill".[17]

There are good reasons, furthermore, to doubt that the strike on the Pentagon was engineered by al Qaeda terrorists, or any external enemies of the United States, for that matter. Why? For one thing, the west wing of the Pentagon was under construction, and therefore most of the people killed were civilians working on the renovation. It must be questioned why these alien terrorists--who if they engineered the attacks of 9/11 obviously had excellent intelligent sources--would attack a part of the Pentagon that would cause the least, rather than the most, death and destruction. In particular, would they not have wanted to strike the east wing, which had offices of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and all the top brass?[18]

Further evidence against the government's account is provided by the fact that there is no conclusive evidence that the aircraft that struck the Pentagon was even a Boeing 757, which is the model and design of Flight 77.[19]

End Part I