Professional Documents
Culture Documents
INTRODUCTION
the FBI and foreign intelligence services and more than 40,000
pages of court records and open source material from the print
fled New York the night of the bombing in 1993 and went on to
1
A copy of SA O’Brien’s letter to Commission Chairman Tom Kean is attached
as Exhibit A.
3
to the Commission.3
2
Exhibit B.
3
Exhibit C.
4
Exhibit D.
4
up to the attacks.
and tunnels around New York City (Clement Rodney Hampton-El) and
QUESTIONS:
1) Why did the FBI shut down its August 1989 surveillance
murder of Rabbi Kahane, detectives from the NYPD and agents from
charge. Further, the evidence shifted back and forth between the
speeches were not translated until after the 1993 WTC bombing.
QUESTIONS:
released?
3) Did the FBI question them while they were being held by the
associate of Osama bin Laden’s who had helped raise funds for
the Mujahadeen rebels during the Afghan War against the Soviets
for money to the Afghan rebels. The Center was the place from
which the FBI’s SOG had followed the Calverton shooters in July
of 1989.
home to Egypt when, on or about the night of Feb 26, 1991 he was
though Shalabi was found with two red hairs in his hand. The
murder remains unsolved, but from that moment on, Sheikh Abdel
Farooq mosque and Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda had what amounted
QUESTIONS:
Calverton-Kahane cell?
his life, Mr. Salem was invited up to Attica prison where the
under oath. In addition Mr. Dunbar insisted that Mr. Salem, who
Mr. Salem withdrew, causing the FBI to lose its primary asset
inside the blind Sheikh’s cell. Once Mr. Salem was out of the
Calverton. All three men were working out of the Alkifah Center,
Mr. Salem met in the fall of 1992 with Special Agent Floyd who
paid him his last $500 fee for working as an FBI asset. At this
had picked up word that another plot was afoot. Agent Floyd
informed Mr. Salem that she had been frozen out of the terrorism
Carson Dunbar.
during the fall of 1992 as Ramzi Yousef built the 1,500 pound
urea nitrate fuel oil device that eventually killed six and
which Salameh was driving. The bomb maker, who had made up to
ordered chemicals for the bomb from his hospital room. Thousands
traceable calls were made from a pay phone near Yousef’s bomb
Abouhalima who was acting as the chief expeditor for the bomb
plot.
with Ajaj calling from the U.S. Prison at Otisville, New York
of Abouhalima and Salameh that the FBI’s former asset Emad Salem
captured, the WTC bombing thwarted and Osama bin Laden’s New
of 9/11.
QUESTIONS:
13
Ramzi Yousef and his uncle Khalid Shaikh Mohammed had set in
QUESTION:
5
Exhibit E Memo to Orin G. Hatch from Sen. Judiciary Committee staff
members 12/5/95 reproduced on pp. 519-521 of 1000 YEARS FOR REVENGE.
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had examined Yousef’s first date with the World Trade Center,
they might well have uncovered details of the plot that led to
bring Emad Salem back into the fold. Within days he had given
cell.
By the late Spring of 1993 Mr. Salem had worked with the
Day of Terror) plot to blow up, among other targets, the United
witness in the Landmarks Trial and was ultimately paid more than
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$1.5 million dollars for doing what he could have done for the
FBI in the fall of 1992 for $500 a week. Mr. Salem proved to be
that date in the incipient war on terror, yet rather than being
Responsibility (OPR).
information was leaked to The New York Post suggesting that she
had been having a romantic affair with Mr. Salem. Further, she
surrender her badge and her gun and put on the street -- for her
failed to heed her advice and that of Emad Salem and authorize
QUESTION:
bombing conspiracy, when she was the one agent in the best
one Abdul Rahman Yasin, a U.S. born Iraqi who had been a
let Yasin go. The next night he was in Baghdad and subsequently
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QUESTIONS:
FINDING: Following his flight from New York on the night of the
WTC bombing, Ramzi Yousef made two attempts on the life of the
bin Laden called “The Lion,” for his reputed bravery in the war
and the other two principal cell members were planning three
operations:
assemble the devices and plant them in the life jacket pouches
shy of the center fuel tank) the flight with 273 passengers and
crew would have been blown out of the sky. Instead, a Japanese
national in seat 26K, where Yousef had planted the bomb, was
the lead pilot. Earlier during his training in 1992 Murad had
interrogation.
Yousef and KSM escaped followed the fire, but Yousef was
falsely took credit for his capture, affected after a tip to the
U.S. State Dept. via its Rewards for Justice Program, FBI agents
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failed to capture Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who was not only staying
Wali Khan Amin Shah was captured days after the Donna
for trial. Abdul Hakim Murad was also extradited back, but not
of the 9/11 plot, including the fact that Yousef and KSM (as
early as 1994) had chosen six targets including the WTC, CIA
Col. Mendoza gave all of the details of this third plot to the
In 1996 Yousef, Murad and Shad were tried in U.S. Court for
outside of prison and that the FBI might monitor the calls to
gather intelligence.
But Yousef apparently turned the tables on the Feds and was
least one to his uncle Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who, by 1996, was
9/11.
plot.
any mention of the third plot that became the 9/11 attacks, even
Major Alberto Ferro of the PNP, who was with Col. Mendoza for
stated that he did not recall the identities of the others who
that Murad was being interrogated by the PNP until mid March of
that defies belief given the close cooperation between U.S. and
6
Exhibit F Reproduced as pp. 499-516 in 1000 YEARS FOR REVENGE.
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And though the hunt for Yousef was very public, resulting
and matchbooks worldwide, the identity of his uncle and 9/11 co-
details of the 9/11 plot which Murad had confessed had been set
South Tower, the first words out his mouth were, “They have done
Mohammed al Qaeda cell had finally carried out the plot he had
QUESTIONS:
culminated on 9/11?
case and why were PNP officer Ferro and FBI agent
had worked as an FBI asset via Squad Five of the Phoenix office
in the mid 1990’s, told me that in the fall of 1996 he had told
met with a man who had bragged to him (Ellen) about being an
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alone.”
directly to the 9/11 conspiracy, but the FBI found evidence that
the Pentagon.
successful asset for several years and Ellen had brokered a deal
accused the FBI agent of threatening to blow his cover with the
Phoenix memo had come more than four and a half years after Ellen
Phoenix Memo he believed the Sept. 11th attacks might have been
thwarted.
QUESTIONS:
more than four and a half years to act on Ellen’s suggestion that
office behind “organized crime and drugs, white collar crime and
FBI under Director Robert S. Mueller and SAC Gonzalez was later
Harry Ellen claims that his life has been ruined by the FBI
following his falling out with SA Williams. Has the FBI taken
any specific reprisals vs. Mr. Ellen? Why hasn’t he been called
schools?
the World Trade Center from the FDNY prior to the 1993 bombing.
Further, Fire Marshal Bucca learned that Mr. Refai had been
Bucca learned that Mr. Refai had told multiple lies to obtain a
complex. Mr. Bucca presented his findings to the FBI’s JTTF and
Eve contacted the FDNY who sent the Refai file to the FBI a
book, Mr. Refai denied that he had obtained the WTC blueprints
QUESTIONS:
that Mr. Refai had obtained the plans of the WTC prior to the
1993 bombing?
to Metrotech in 1998?
investigation?
office (The bin Laden office of origin) and the Phoenix office
Bush, that the FBI was in the best position to stop Ramzi Yousef
Having lost Yousef the first time in New York, the Bureau
the DOJ to release him back to Jordan for trial. Rather than
holding onto this key asset who was reportedly the chief
Administration.
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called a White House meeting with officials from the FBI, FAA,
the staff.
The A.G., they said, had been advised to travel only by private
found ZERO EVIDENCE of any ties between Saddam Hussein and OBL
and blind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, bin Laden’s war against the
of 2000 bin Laden issued the now famous video fatwa in which he
appeared with the blind Sheikh’s son and admonished the U.S. to
about a plot to hijack a plane to free the blind Sheikh and just
exchange the eight Christian aid workers being held in Kabul for
that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the
World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the
In the decades ahead NO ONE will ever recall what jobs the
will hold each and every one of them accountable along with the
Commission staff.
7
CNN 5/17/02.
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Respectfully submitted
by Peter Anthony Lance
3/15/04 New York City
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As a former agent who served 19 years in the FBI (mostly in New York City) and as
the proud recipient of the U.S. Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award for
my investigative work against Organized Crime, I am acutely aware of the
importance of your mission as Chairman of the 9/11 Commission.
Last summer I became aware of the work being done to uncover the truth behind the
Bureau’s intel failures leading up to the attacks by an investigative reporter named
Peter Lance. I had never met Mr. Lance, but after we connected I was impressed
with the work he had done and offered to help him in any way I could.
In early July I accompanied Mr. Lance to the home of one Ahmed Amin Refai, an
Egyptian naturalized citizen who had retired as an accountant from the New York
City Fire Dept. I had examined Mr. Lance’s investigative files on this individual and
seen a video and still picture of him cheek to jowl with the blind Sheikh, one of the
most dangerous terrorists ever admitted to our country.
Mr. Lance, it seemed to me, had developed probative evidence, originally unearthed
by Fire Marshal Ronnie Bucca who died on 9/11, that Mr. Refai was acting on behalf
of the Sheikh’s cell when he obtained the blueprints of the Twin Towers before the
bombing by Ramzi Yousef in 1993. Sensing that Mr. Lance might be in some danger
in interviewing Mr. Refai, I offered to accompany him to Middletown New Jersey
after he had learned that Mr. Refai had slipped back into the country from Egypt.
In the course of a 45 minutes interview it was clear to me that Mr. Refai was being
evasive, contradictory and, at times, openly untruthful in his efforts to diminish his
relationship with the blind Sheikh. During the interview Mr. Lance got Mr. Refai to
admit that he had acted as the Sheikh’s translator during a crucial INS hearing which
could have affected the Sheikh’s status in this country.
Mr. Refai also admitted that he was a member of the notorious al-Salaam mosque in
Jersey City which had been a focal point for the Ramzi Yousef cell in the months prior
to the WTC bombing in 1993. Refai also admitted, after continued questioning by Mr.
Lance, that he had been the object of a recent FBI investigation.
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Later, after examining some of Mr. Lance’s documentary evidence and reading his
book cover to cover I was stunned by the depth and breadth of his investigation. For
the first time he uncovered detailed evidence of a connection via Ramzi Yousef to
the two attacks on the Trade Center in 1993 and 2001 and further, underscored the
negligence of certain members in FBI management in failing to stop Yousef prior to
the first bombing.
More importantly, with respect to Mr. Refai, Mr. Lance unearthed compelling
evidence of an al Qaeda related “sleeper cell” that was active as late as 1999, a time
when, we now know Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Yousef’s uncle, was working in
Hamburg with Mohammed Atta, another Egyptian, to perfect the 9/11 plot.
Mr. Lance discovered that Fire Marshal Bucca had alerted the FBI’s Joint Terrorist
Task Force to this evidence on Mr. Refai as early as September of 1999, but he had
been spurned – only to perish on the 78th floor of Tower Two on Sept. 11th.
Based on my knowledge of Peter Lance and his investigation I can tell you without a
doubt that had Mr. Lance been a Special Agent with the FBI working International
Terrorism cases in the 90's, OBL and the al Qaeda terrorist who attacked America
would either be in a U.S. prison, a foreign prison or deceased, which is perhaps a
more proper sentence for them.
The FBI did not have and still does not have a clue, when it comes to dealing with
this kind of criminal element. It took the FBI 30 years to take down the Mafia. This
country does not have the luxury of that kind of time, when dealing with these
terrorists. The American public deserves some accountability from our government
officials for allowing 9/11 to happen. Your Commission holds out the prospect of
that. But in order to get to the real truth you need ALL of the facts.
I strongly urge you to read Peter Lance’s book and allow him to testify at your
upcoming hearings in February. I have studied this matter closely and from my
standpoint, 1000 YEARS FOR REVENGE offers the most compelling evidence to
date that the attacks of 9/11 could have been prevented.
If you have any questions please feel free to contact me at any time.
Respectfully,