Link To 9/11 Hijackers Found In Sarasota

Link to 9/11 hijackers found in Sarasota
FBI found ties between hijackers and Saudis in Sarasota but never revealed the findings

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/09/07/v-fullstory/2395698/link-to-911-hijackers-found-in.html

By Anthony Summers and Dan Christensen
Special to The Miami Herald

Just two weeks before the 9/11 hijackers slammed into the Pentagon and World Trade Center, members of a Saudi family abruptly vacated their luxury home near Sarasota, leaving a brand new car in the driveway, a refrigerator full of food, fruit on the counter — and an open safe in a master bedroom.

In the weeks to follow, law enforcement agents not only discovered the home was visited by vehicles used by the hijackers, but phone calls were linked between the home and those who carried out the death flights — including leader Mohamed Atta — in discoveries never before revealed to the public.

Ten years after the deadliest attack of terrorism on U.S. soil, new information has emerged that shows the FBI found troubling ties between the hijackers and residents in the upscale community in southwest Florida, but the investigation wasn’t reported to Congress or mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report.

Former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, the Florida Democrat who co-chaired the congressional Joint Inquiry into the attacks, said he should have been told about the findings, saying it “opens the door to a new chapter of investigation as to the depth of the Saudi role in 9/11. ... No information relative to the named people in Sarasota was disclosed.”

The U.S. Justice Department, the lead agency that investigated the attacks, refused to comment, saying it will discuss only information already released.

The Saudi residents then living at the stylish home, Abdulazzi al-Hiijjii and his wife Anoud, could not be reached, nor could the then-owner of the house, Esam Ghazzawi, who is Anoud’s father. The house was sold in 2003, records show.

For Graham, the connections between the hijackers and residents raise questions about whether other Saudi nationals in Florida knew of the impending attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people.

The FBI investigation began the month after 9/11 when Larry Berberich, senior administrator and security officer of the gated community known as Prestancia, reported a bizarre event that took place two weeks before the hijackings of four passenger jets that originated in Boston, Newark and Washington.

The couple, living with their small children at the three-bedroom home at 4224 Escondito Circle, had left in a hurry in a white van, probably on Aug. 30.

They abandoned three recently registered vehicles, including a brand-new Chrysler PT Cruiser, in the garage and driveway.

After 9/11, Berberich said he had “a gut feeling” the people at the home may have had something to do with the attacks, prompting the FBI’s probe that would eventually link the hijackers to the house.

As an advisor to the Sarasota County sheriff — Berberich was with the group that received President Bush during his aborted visit to a Sarasota school on the morning of 9/11 — he alerted sheriff’s deputies. Patrick Gallagher, one of the Saudis’ neighbors, had become suspicious even earlier, and had fired off an email to the FBI on the day of the attacks.

Gallagher said law enforcement officers arrived and began an investigation, with agents swarming “all over the place, in their blue jackets,” he recalled.

Jone Weist, president of the group that managed Prestancia, confirmed the arrival of the FBI, which requested copies of the Saudis’ financial transactions involving the house.

Berberich and a senior counterterrorism agent said they were able to get into the abandoned house, ultimately finding “there was mail on the table, dirty diapers in one of the bathrooms … all the toiletries still in place … all their clothes hanging in the closet … opulent furniture, equal or greater in value than the house … the pool running, with toys in it.”

“The beds were made … fruit on the counter … the refrigerator full of food. … It was like they went grocery shopping. Like they went out to a movie ... [But] the safe was open in the master bedroom, with nothing in it, not a paper clip. ... A computer was still there. A computer plug in another room, and the line still there. Looked like they’d taken [another] computer and left the cord.”

The counterterrorism officer, who requested his name not be disclosed, said agents went on to make troubling discoveries: Phone records and the Prestancia gate records linked the house on Escondito Circle to the hijackers.

In addition, three of the four future hijackers had lived in Venice — just 10 miles from the house — for much of the year before 9/11. Atta, the leader, and his companion Marwan al-Shehhi, had been learning to fly small airplanes at Huffman Aviation, a flight school on the edge of the runway at Venice Municipal Airport.

A block away, at Florida Flight Training, accomplice Ziad Jarrah was also taking flying lessons. All three obtained their pilot licenses and afterwards, in the months that led to 9/11, spent much of their time traveling the state, including stints in Hollywood, Fort Lauderdale and Delray Beach, among other areas.

The counterterrorism agent said records of incoming and outgoing calls made at the Escondito house were obtained from the phone company under subpoena.

Agents were able to conduct a link analysis, a system of tracking calls based on dates, times and length of conversations — finding the Escondito calls dating back more than a year, “lined up with the known suspects.”

The links were not only to Atta and his hijack pilots, the agent said, but to 11 other terrorist suspects, including Walid al-Shehhri, one of the men who flew with Atta on the first plane to strike the World Trade Center.

Another was Adnan Shukrijumah, a former Miramar resident identified as having been with Atta in the spring of 2001. Shukrijumah is still at large and is on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.

But it was the gate records at the Prestancia development that produced the most telltale information.

People who arrived by car had to give their names and the address they were visiting. Gate staff would sometimes ask to see a driver’s license and note the name, Berberich said. License plates were photographed.

Atta is known to have used variations of his name, but the license plate of the car he owned was on record.

The vehicle and name information on Atta and Jarrah fit that of drivers entering Prestancia on their way to visit the home at 4224 Escondito Circle, said Berberich and the counterterrorism officer.

Sarasota County property records identify the owners of the house at the time as Ghazzawi and his American-born wife Deborah, both with a post office box in al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia, and the capital, Riyadh.

Ghazzawi was described as a middle-aged financier and interior designer, the owner of many properties, including several in the United States, said the counterterrorism agent.

While Ghazzawi visited the house, the people living there were his daughter Anoud and her husband al-Hiijjii, who appeared to be in his 30s and once identified himself as a college student, said Berberich, who met the son-in-law.

The couple’s sudden departure two weeks before 9/11 was tracked in detail by the FBI after the attacks, the agent said.

First, they traveled to a Ghazzawi property in Arlington, Va., then — with Esam Ghazzawi — via Dulles airport and London’s Heathrow, to Riyadh.

The counterterrorism agent said Ghazzawi and al-Hiijjii had been on a watch list at the FBI and that a U.S. agency tracking terrorist funds was interested in both men even before 9/11.

“464 was Ghazzawi’s number,” the officer said. “I don’t remember the other man’s number.”

About a year after the family abandoned the home, the FBI made an attempt to lure the owner back.

Scott McKay, a Sarasota lawyer for the Prestancia homeowners’ association in its claim for unpaid dues, said the FBI tried to get him to bring the Saudis back for the transaction.

McKay said he tried to get the Ghazzawis to sign the necessary documents in person, but the ploy failed because the documents could legally be signed elsewhere using a notary. Records show Ghazzawi’s signature was notarized by the vice consul of the U.S. embassy in Lebanon in September 2003. Deborah Ghazzawi’s signature was notarized in Riverside County, Calif.

During an interview on Sunday, Graham said he was surprised he wasn’t told about the probe when he was co-chair of Congress’ Joint Inquiry into 9/11 — even though he was especially alert to terrorist information relating to Florida.

“At the beginning of the investigation,” he said, “each of the intelligence agencies, including the FBI, was asked to provide all information that agency possessed in relation to 9/11.”

The fact that the FBI did not tell the Inquiry about the Florida discoveries, Graham says, is similar to the agency’s failure to provide information linking members of the 9/11 terrorist team to other Saudis in California until congressional investigators discovered it themselves.

The Inquiry did nevertheless accumulate a “very large” file on the hijackers in the United States, and later turned it over to the 9/11 Commission. “They did very little with it,” Graham said, “and their reference to Saudi Arabia is almost cryptic sometimes. … I never got a good answer as to why they did not pursue that.”

The final 28-page section of the Inquiry’s report, which deals with “sources of foreign support for some of the Sept. 11 hijackers,” was entirely blanked out. It was kept secret from the public on the orders of former President George W. Bush and is still withheld to this day, Graham said.

This in spite of the fact that Graham and his Republican counterpart, U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, both concluded the release of the pages would not endanger national security.

The grounds for suppressing the material, Graham believes, were “protection of the Saudis from embarrassment, protection of the administration from political embarrassment … some of the unknowns, some of the secrets of 9/11.”

Anthony Summers is co-author of The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of 9/11 & Osama bin Laden. Dan Christensen is the editor of the Broward Bulldog, a not-for-profit online only newspaper created to provide local reporting in the public interest. www.BrowardBulldog.org

Bob Graham Wants 9/11 Inquiry Reopened

http://www.wusf.usf.edu/news/2011/09/08/bob_graham_wants_911_inquiry_reopened

By Steve Newborn
9/9/2011

TAMPA (2011-9-9) - New information is surfacing that a Saudi family in Sarasota is linked to the masterminds of the 9/11 terror attack. Even though the FBI investigated the connection after the family fled, Congressional investigators were never notified. And that has former Sen. Bob Graham calling for a new investigation.

The information first surfaced in a story in the Broward Bulldog website. It says two of the 9/11 hijackers - including mastermind Mohammed Atta - appear to have visited the home of a Saudi family in Sarasota. And phone records link people in the house to several terrorism suspects.

Neighbors of the Saudis in the gated Prestancia community say the family disappeared a week before 9/11. They left a new car in the driveway and food in the refrigerator. And the FBI investigated the connection between the family and the 9/11 hijackers who trained to fly in nearby Venice.

But information about the investigation was apparently withheld. Former Florida Sen. Bob Graham headed Congress' 9/11 inquiry, and says he believes the Bush Administration purposely withheld the information from Congress.

"It tends to reaffirm the fundamental theory that the 19 hijackers were not acting alone," says Graham. "That they could have only completed such a complicated assignment as planning, practicing and executing a very sophisticated plot if they had assistance from people who spoke the English language, who were familiar with the culture of the United States and to provide them with protection, anonymity and support."

Graham says he will personally lobby President Obama to reopen the investigation into the attacks.

Mystery surrounds the ritzy Florida home linked to 9/11 terrorists - and why the FBI didn't tell Congressional committee about it

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ed-9-11-terrorists--FBI-failed-report-it.html

It's a sprawling piece of real estate with a dark secret: It may have been a haven for bloodthirsty terrorists.

The sudden disappearance of the home’s Saudi residents before September 11 prompted calls to authorities, who found links to those who orchestrated the horrific attacks of that morning.

Days before the tenth anniversary of the worst terror strike on American soil, new light is being shed on the home, and its ties to the tragedy.
House or terror haven? This home, located at 4224 Escondito Circle in Sarasota, Florida, was probed by the FBI and was found to have several ties to the 9/11 hijackers

House or haven? This home, located at 4224 Escondito Circle in Sarasota, Florida, was probed by the FBI and was found to have several ties to the 9/11 hijackers

The Miami Herald reported the home was owned at the time by Esam Ghazzawi, a financier and interior designer, and his wife Deborah.

Also living at the opulent house was Abdulazzi al-Hiijjii and his wife Anoud, Ghazzawi’s daughter. The home was sold in 2003.

Days before September 11, 2001, the Saudi family and their small children hurriedly vacated in a white van, leaving brand new cars in the garage, a fridge full of food and closets filled with clothes.

Their sudden departure irked Larry Berberich, senior administrator and security officer of the gated community, who reported the exodus.

Ironically, Mr Berberich, an advisor to the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office, was with the group that received President Bush during his visit to the school where he was famously told of the terror attacks on the morning of September 11.

That same morning, neighbour Patrick Gallagher emailed the FBI to report what he felt was suspicious behaviour by the family.

In an investigation that began weeks after the 9/11 attacks, the FBI reportedly found several links to the hijackers who carried them out.

When authorities pulled the records of phone calls to and from the home, they made a shocking discovery.

The numbers belonged to more than a dozen suspected terrorists, including the 9/11 hijackers.

A check on the logs of those entering the gated community prior to the attacks found a car belonging to Mohammed Atta, who piloted American Airlines Flight 11 into the north tower of the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11.

Another car entering was linked to Ziad Samir Jarrah, a hijacker of United Airlines Flight 93 that crashed just outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Jarrah received flight training about a block away from the house at the Florida Flight Training, the Herald reported.

Another phone number linked to the home was that of Adnan Shukrijumah, who is believed to have been with Atta in the spring of 2001.

Shukrijumah, who is on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, remains on the loose.

The FBI was able to trace Ghazzawi's route back to Riyadh, with a stopover at a property he owned in Arlington, Virginia, before boarding a flight to Heathrow Airport on the way to Saudi Arabia.

An unnamed counterterrorism agent told the paper that Ghazzawi and al-Hiijjii were on an FBI watch list and a U.S. agency tracking terrorist funds was interested in both men even before 9/11.

Former Florida Sen. Bob Graham, who co-chaired the inquiry into the 9/11 attacks, said he was surprised he wasn’t told about the probe of the Escondito Circle home at the time - even though he was especially alert to information pertaining to Florida.

Despite that, the inquiry was able to gather a massive file on the hijackers in the United States, and it was turned it over to the 9/11 Commission.

But Sen Graham said the Commission 'did very little with it, and their reference to Saudi Arabia is almost cryptic sometimes.

'I never got a good answer as to why they did not pursue that.'

FBI investigated another Sarasota link to 9/11

http://www.heraldtribune.com/articl...BI-investigated-another-Sarasota-link-to-9-11

By Zac Anderson & Robert Eckhart
Published: Thursday, September 8, 2011 at 11:10 p.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, September 8, 2011 at 11:10 p.m.

Newly revealed details from an FBI investigation into the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks link a Saudi family living in an upscale Sarasota neighborhood to the hijackers, who made multiple visits to the Sarasota home before 9/11.

The Saudi family appear to have fled their home in the gated Palmer Ranch community of Prestancia two weeks before Sept. 11, raising suspicions about whether they had knowledge of the impending attacks. The family left clothes hanging in closets, food in the refrigerator, toys floating in the pool and three cars in the driveway and garage.

Details of the investigation were uncovered by author Anthony Summers and Dan Christensen, editor of Browardbulldog.org. Their story, which relied largely on an unnamed counterterrorism agent as well as former Prestancia security guard Larry Berberich, was published Thursday on Christensen's website and in the Miami Herald.

The story documents yet another potential connection between Southwest Florida and the Sept. 11 attacks.

Three of the four men who piloted planes on Sept. 11 attended flight schools in Venice and lived there until shortly before the attacks. Two of them, Sept. 11 mastermind Mohammed Atta and Ziad Jarrah, were found to have visited the Saudi family in Prestancia based on photos of their license plates taken at the security gate and information the men gave gate guards.

Neighbors did not grow suspicious of the Saudi family until after Sept. 11, when their abrupt departure days earlier raised questions.

At least three Sarasota residents, including a neighbor, a security guard and a real estate agent, called the FBI to report the Saudi family's odd behavior. Counterterrorism experts later pieced together the family's connection to the hijackers, but by then the Saudis had returned to their home country.

In a Thursday interview with the Herald Tribune, a former neighbor and close friend of the Saudi family who visited their house nearly every day for a few years in the mid-90s said she always wondered what had become of her old friends.

Sarasota High School graduate Carla DiBello, 27, said she became close with Anoud al-Hiijjii, the young Saudi mother.

Anoud, who was only 18 or 19 at the time, treated DiBello like a younger sister and DiBello enjoyed playing with the family's young twins, Esam and Hamsa.

DiBello and Anoud went to movies together, shopped at the mall and took trips to Busch Gardens.

DiBello said Anoud was a heavyset, pious woman who prayed multiple times a day. But in many ways she and her husband, Abdulazzi, were very Westernized. She sported a 10-carat, heart-shaped diamond ring. He liked Polo shirts and expensive jeans. They wore designer clothes, drove a Range Rover and a Lexus, loved American movies and decorated their home lavishly.

Abdulazzi often walked next door to visit with DiBello's father, Tom, and drink liquor, something Anoud did not approve of.

"Anoud would make him go pray and be more involved in their culture," Carla DiBello said.

Tom DiBello, an insurance salesman who now lives near Fort Lauderdale, said Abdulazzi was affable and outgoing.

DiBello got the impression that Abdulazzi, who at times said he was a business student but also talked about exporting furniture, was coasting on his wife's family money.

Anoud's father, Esam Ghazzawi, is a well-known interior designer and financier in Saudi Arabia who owned multiple properties in the United States, including the Prestancia home. The family bragged that Ghazzawi had a close relationship with the Saudi royal family.

Carlo DiBello said she met Ghazzawi at least four times and described him as "very eccentric." He enjoyed big family dinners and always had a large security detail.

Once, DiBello was shopping with the family around the time that Ab Roller exercise gadgets became popular.

Ghazzawi "ordered 40 or 50 of them at once and said he wanted them at all of his homes and offices around the world," DiBello said.

Abdulazzi's easy manner did not raise suspicions, but Tom DiBello said in hindsight some of their conversations were odd.

"He felt Americans came to their country to steal their oil and take their money," DiBello said. "He said he did not like Americans because of what we did to his country. He said, 'How would you like it if we came to your country and did that?' "

The al-Hiijjii family did not socialize widely and did not belong to Prestancia's posh country club or take advantage of the world-class golf course, DiBello said.

Carla DiBello, who now works in Los Angeles as a television producer for the show "Keeping Up With the Kardashians," said she lost touch with the family around 1999 after she entered high school and moved out of Prestancia.

House for sale
Sarasota real estate agent Louise Tessier may have been one of the last local residents to have contact with the al-Hiijjii family before they disappeared.

Tessier sat down with the couple in their family room in May 2001 after they contacted her about selling the Prestancia home.

Anoud told Tessier they wanted to sell the house because a brother was headed to college in Tampa.

Tessier didn't ask too many follow-up questions.

"We were never on a comfortable footing," she said. "You couldn't talk to them as easy as you could with other people."

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Tessier got a tip that the family had abandoned their Prestancia home. She tried to contact them by phone and email. She remembers calling a phone number in Saudi Arabia but never getting through to the right people.

When Tessier went to check out the house, she saw that the pool was green and a car was parked in the driveway.

"There was stuff in the house that shouldn't have been left in the house," she said. "And I can't remember if I found food in the refrigerator or what but it was just like they had abandoned the whole thing."

She went back to her office and called the FBI.

"They knew who I meant," Tessier said. "Didn't have any problem getting that through to them. It made me feel like they knew what was going on."

A few months later, Tessier said the FBI called her back and told her that the al-Hiijjiis were "cleared." The FBI said that she could go through with the sale, and that the federal government would not be seizing the house.

But Tessier says she had had enough of the family.

"I just shut down on the whole thing. I didn't want to have anything to do with it."

What has become of the al-Hiijjii and Ghazzawi families since they fled the United States is unclear.

The Justice Department, the lead agency that investigated the attacks, refused to comment, saying it would discuss only information already released.

The al-Hiijjii and Ghazzawi families could not be reached for comment. The house was sold in 2003, records show.

Inquiry kept secret
The FBI investigation into the al-Hiijjii and Ghazzawi families was not reported to Congress or mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report.

Former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, the Florida Democrat who cochaired the bipartisan congressional joint inquiry into the attacks, said he should have been told about the findings, saying it "opens the door to a new chapter of investigation as to the depth of the Saudi role in 9/11. . . . No information relative to the named people in Sarasota was disclosed."

For Graham, who served as Florida's governor from 1979 to 1987, the connections between the hijackers and residents raise questions about whether other Saudi nationals in Florida might have known of the impending attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people.

The FBI investigation began the month after 9/11 when Larry Berberich, senior administrator and security officer of Prestancia, reported that the couple, living with their small children at the three-bedroom home at 4224 Escondito Circle, had left in a hurry in a white van, probably on Aug. 30.

They abandoned three recently registered vehicles, including a brand-new Chrysler PT Cruiser, in the garage and driveway.

As an adviser to the Sarasota County sheriff, Berberich was with the group that received President George W. Bush during his truncated visit to a Sarasota school on the morning of 9/11. He alerted sheriff's deputies.

Patrick Gallagher, one of the Saudis' neighbors, had become suspicious even earlier, and had fired off an email to the FBI on the day of the attacks. Gallagher said law enforcement officers arrived and began an investigation, with agents swarming "all over the place, in their blue jackets," he recalled.

Berberich and a senior counterterrorism agent said they were able to get into the abandoned house, ultimately finding "there was mail on the table, dirty diapers in one of the bathrooms ... all the toiletries still in place ... all their clothes hanging in the closet ... TVs ... opulent furniture, equal or greater in value than the house ... the pool running, with toys in it."

The counterterrorism officer, who requested that his name not be disclosed, said agents went on to make some troubling discoveries: Phone records and the Prestancia gate records linked the house on Escondito Circle to the hijackers.

The links were not only to Atta and his hijack pilots, the agent said, but to 11 other terrorist suspects, including Walid al-Shehhri, one of the men who flew with Atta on the first plane to strike the World Trade Center.

But it was the gate records at the Prestancia development that produced the most telltale information.

People who arrived by car had to give their names and the home's address they were visiting. Gate staff would sometimes ask to see a driver's license and note the name, said Berberich.

More importantly, he added, the license plates of cars pulling through the gate were photographed.

Atta is known to have used variations of his name, but the license plate of the car he owned was on record.

The vehicle and name information on Atta and Jarrah fit that of drivers entering Prestancia on their way to visit the home at Escondito Circle, said Berberich and the counterterrorism officer.

County property records identify the owners of the house at the time as Ghazzawi and his American-born wife, Deborah, both with a P.O. box in al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia, and another address in the capital, Riyadh.

The sudden departure two weeks before 9/11 was tracked in detail by the FBI after the attacks, the counterterrorism agent said. First they traveled to a Ghazzawi property in Arlington, Va., then — with Esam Ghazzawi — to Riyadh by way of Dulles and Heathrow airports.

The counterterrorism agent said that Ghazzawi and al-Hiijjii had been on a watch list at the FBI, and that a U.S. agency involved in tracking terrorist funds was interested in both men even before 9/11.

About a year after the family vacated the home, the FBI made an attempt to lure the owner back. Scott McKay, a Sarasota lawyer for the Prestancia homeowners' association in its claim for unpaid dues on the property, said the FBI tried to get him to bring the Saudis back for the transaction.

"They didn't say you must do this. It was more like, 'But we'd really, really like you to make this happen,'" said McKay said.

McKay said he tried to get the Ghazzawis to sign the necessary documents in person, but the ploy failed because the documents could legally be signed elsewhere using a notary. Records show Ghazzawi's signature was notarized by the vice consul of the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon in September 2003. Deborah Ghazzawi's signature was notarized in Riverside County, Calif.

Investigate 9/11 link in Sarasota, Fla. lawmaker says

http://www.sacbee.com/2011/09/13/3905934/investigate-911-link-in-sarasota.html

By Dan Christensen
The Miami Herald

Published: Tuesday, Sep. 13, 2011 - 4:06 am
Last Modified: Tuesday, Sep. 13, 2011 - 5:02 am

A decade after the FBI found ties between a Saudi family living quietly near Sarasota and the 9/11 hijackers, a Florida Democratic congresswoman is calling on the House Intelligence Committee to investigate whether agents revealed their findings to Congress.

Kathy Castor said she was troubled over reports that federal agents discovered a luxury home where the family was living was visited by vehicles used by the hijackers and phone calls were linked between the home and the terrorists, but Congress was not told of the discovery.

The family abruptly left the home less than two weeks before the attacks, leaving a new car in the driveway, a refrigerator stuffed with food, toys in the pool — and an open safe in the master bedroom, according to administrators at the development.

“One of the great criticisms of the pre-9/11 intelligence operations,” Castor wrote in her letter on Monday to the committee’s two senior members, “was the lack of cooperation and information sharing among agencies.”

The dispute over what Congress knew about the case emerged last week after The Miami Herald reported about the little known FBI investigation at the upscale development on Florida’s west coast..

Former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, the Florida Democrat who chaired the congressional Joint Inquiry into the deadly hijackings, said he was never told about the case, while the FBI, in a statement released Friday, said the agency did indeed tell Congress and the 911 Commission.

“With respect to recent reports about the Sarasota area, there is no new information related to the 9/11 hijackers,’’ said the FBI, adding the case was found not to be related to the 9/11 events. “All of the documentation pertaining to the 9/11 investigation was made available to the 9/11 Commission and the [joint inquiry].”

But Graham says questions still abound over the bizarre events that occurred at the three-bedroom home owned by Saudi financier Esam Ghazzawi, whose daughter and son-in-law and two young children resided there.

Graham disputed the FBI’s statement that the agency informed the Congress, saying it was “BS” that he and congressional investigators were told about the Sarasota events.

In an appearance Monday on MSNBC, Graham said he spoke with President Barack Obama’s counterterrorism advisor.

FBI probe into Sarasota home's link to 9/11 hijackers wasn't reported to Congress, commission

http://www.heraldonline.com/2011/09/07/3363534/fbi-probe-into-sarasota-homes.html

Anthony Summers and Dan Christensen - McClatchy Newspapers
9/13/2011

MIAMI — Just two weeks before the 9/11 hijackers slammed into the Pentagon and World Trade Center, members of a Saudi family abruptly vacated their luxury home near Sarasota, Fla., leaving a brand new car in the driveway, a refrigerator full of food, fruit on the counter — and an open safe in a master bedroom.

In the weeks to follow, law enforcement agents not only discovered the home was visited by vehicles used by the hijackers, but also phone calls were linked between the home and those who carried out the death flights — including leader Mohamed Atta — in discoveries never before revealed to the public.

Ten years after the deadliest attack of terrorism on U.S. soil, new information has emerged that shows the FBI found troubling ties between the hijackers and residents in the upscale community in southwest Florida, but the investigation wasn't reported to Congress or mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report.

Former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, the Florida Democrat who co-chaired the congressional Joint Inquiry into the attacks, said he should have been told about the findings, saying it "opens the door to a new chapter of investigation as to the depth of the Saudi role in 9/11. ... No information relative to the named people in Sarasota was disclosed."

The U.S. Justice Department, the lead agency that investigated the attacks, refused to comment, saying it will discuss only information already released.

The Saudi residents then living at the stylish home, Abdulazzi al-Hiijjii and his wife, Anoud, could not be reached, nor could the then-owner of the house, Esam Ghazzawi, who is Anoud's father. The house was sold in 2003, records show.

For Graham, the connections between the hijackers and residents raise questions about whether other Saudi nationals in Florida knew of the impending attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people.

The FBI investigation began the month after 9/11 when Larry Berberich, senior administrator and security officer of the gated community known as Prestancia, reported a bizarre event that took place two weeks before the hijackings of four passenger jets that originated in Boston, Newark and Washington.

The couple, living with their small children at the three-bedroom house at 4224 Escondito Circle, had left in a hurry in a white van, probably on Aug. 30.

They abandoned three recently registered vehicles, including a brand-new Chrysler PT Cruiser, in the garage and driveway.

After 9/11, Berberich said he had "a gut feeling" the people at the home may have had something to do with the attacks, prompting the FBI's probe that would eventually link the hijackers to the house.

As an adviser to the Sarasota County sheriff — Berberich was with the group that received President George W. Bush during his visit to a Sarasota school on the morning of 9/11 — he alerted sheriff's deputies. Patrick Gallagher, one of the Saudis' neighbors, had become suspicious even earlier, and had fired off an email to the FBI on the day of the attacks.

Gallagher said law enforcement officers arrived and began an investigation, with agents swarming "all over the place, in their blue jackets," he recalled.

Jone Weist, president of the group that managed Prestancia, confirmed the arrival of the FBI, which requested copies of the Saudis' financial transactions involving the house.

Berberich and a senior counterterrorism agent said they were able to get into the abandoned house, ultimately finding "there was mail on the table, dirty diapers in one of the bathrooms ... all the toiletries still in place ... all their clothes hanging in the closet ... TVs ... opulent furniture, equal or greater in value than the house ... the pool running, with toys in it."

"The beds were made ... fruit on the counter ... the refrigerator full of food. ... It was like they went grocery shopping. Like they went out to a movie. ... (But) the safe was open in the master bedroom, with nothing in it, not a paper clip. ... A computer was still there. A computer plug in another room, and the line still there. Looked like they'd taken (another) computer and left the cord."

In addition, three of the four future hijackers had lived in Venice — just 10 miles from the house — for much of the year before 9/11. Atta, the leader, and his companion Marwan al-Shehhi, had been learning to fly small airplanes at Huffman Aviation, a flight school on the edge of the runway at Venice Municipal Airport.

A block away, at Florida Flight Training, accomplice Ziad Jarrah was also taking flying lessons. All three obtained their pilot licenses and afterwards, in the months that led to 9/11, spent much of their time traveling the state, including stints in Hollywood, Fort Lauderdale and Delray Beach, among other areas.

The counterterrorism agent said records of incoming and outgoing calls made at the Escondito house were obtained from the phone company under subpoena.

Agents were able to conduct a link analysis, a system of tracking calls based on dates, times and length of conversations _ finding the Escondito calls dating back more than a year, "lined up with the known suspects."

The links were not just to Atta and his hijack pilots, the agent said, but to 11 other terrorist suspects, including Walid al-Shehhri, one of the men who flew with Atta on the first plane to strike the World Trade Center.

Another was Adnan Shukrijumah, a former Miramar, Fla., resident identified as having been with Atta in the spring of 2001. Shukrijumah is still at large and is on the FBI's Most Wanted list.

But it was the gate records at the Prestancia development that produced the most telltale information. People who arrived by car had to give their names and the home's address they were visiting. Gate staff would sometimes ask to see a driver's license and note the name, Berberich said. More importantly, he added, the license plates of cars pulling through the gate were photographed.

Atta is known to have used variations of his name, but the license plate of the car he owned was on record.

The vehicle and name information on Atta and Jarrah fit that of drivers entering Prestancia on their way to visit the home at 4224 Escondito Circle, said Berberich and the counterterrorism officer.

Sarasota County property records identify the owners of the house at the time as Ghazzawi and his American-born wife, Deborah, both with a post office box in al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia, and the capital, Riyadh.

Ghazzawi was described as a middle-aged financier and interior designer, the owner of many properties, including several in the United States, said the counterterrorism agent.

While Ghazzawi visited the house, the people living there were his daughter Anoud and her husband, al-Hiijjii, who appeared to be in his 30s and once identified himself as a college student, said Berberich, who met the son-in-law.

The couple's sudden departure two weeks before 9/11 was tracked in detail by the FBI after the attacks, the counterterrorism agent said.

First, they traveled to a Ghazzawi property in Arlington, Va., then — with Esam Ghazzawi — via Dulles airport and London's Heathrow, to Riyadh.

The counterterrorism agent said Ghazzawi and al-Hiijjii had been on a watch list at the FBI and that a U.S. agency involved in tracking terrorist funds was interested in both men even before 9/11.

"464 was Ghazzawi's number," the officer said. "I don't remember the other man's number."

About a year after the family abandoned the home, the FBI made an attempt to lure the owner back. Scott McKay, a Sarasota lawyer for the Prestancia homeowners association in its claim for unpaid dues on the property, said the FBI tried to get him to bring the Saudis back for the transaction. "They didn't say you must do this. It was more like, 'But we'd really, really like you to make this happen,' " McKay said.

McKay said he tried to get the Ghazzawis to sign the necessary documents in person, but the ploy failed because the documents could legally be signed elsewhere using a notary. Records show Ghazzawi's signature was notarized by the vice consul of the U.S. embassy in Lebanon in September 2003. Deborah Ghazzawi's signature was notarized in Riverside County, Calif.

"At the beginning of the investigation," he said, "each of the intelligence agencies, including the FBI, was asked to provide all information that agency possessed in relation to 9/11."

The fact that the FBI did not tell the Inquiry about the Florida discoveries, Graham says, is similar to the agency's failure to provide information linking members of the 9/11 terrorist team to other Saudis in California until congressional investigators discovered it themselves.

The Inquiry did nevertheless accumulate a "very large" file on the hijackers in the United States, and later turned it over to the 9/11 Commission. "They did very little with it," Graham said, "and their reference to Saudi Arabia is almost cryptic sometimes. ... I never got a good answer as to why they did not pursue that."

The final 28-page section of the Inquiry's report, which deals with "sources of foreign support for some of the September 11 hijackers," was entirely blanked out. It was kept secret from the public on the orders of former President George W. Bush and is still withheld to this day, Graham said.

This in spite of the fact that Graham and his Republican counterpart, U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, both concluded the release of the pages would not endanger national security.

The grounds for suppressing the material, Graham believes, were "protection of the Saudis from embarrassment, protection of the administration from political embarrassment ... some of the unknowns, some of the secrets of 9/11."

Former September 11 probe chair calls for reopening inquiry

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/12/us-sept11-graham-idUSTRE78B6DH20110912

9/13/2011

(Reuters) - The former co-chair of a Congressional inquiry after the September 11, 2001 attacks called on the U.S. government to reopen its investigation following a news report linking the hijackers to a Saudi Arabian couple who lived in Florida.

Former U.S. Senator Bob Graham said he has no reason to doubt the news report, which said the Saudi Arabian couple abruptly abandoned their luxury home in Sarasota two weeks before the attacks, leaving behind a full refrigerator, clothes, furnishings and a new car in the driveway.

The report was published by BrowardBulldog.org., a nonprofit Internet news site and was simultaneously published on the news website of the Miami Herald.

If true, it reveals another Saudi terrorism connection that was never disclosed by the FBI to the public or to the 2002 joint Congressional intelligence committee investigating the attacks, said Graham, who was co-chair of the committee.

The FBI office in Tampa issued a statement on Monday saying the Sarasota case was one of many leads that "were resolved and determined not to be related to any threat nor connected to the 9/11 plot."

Graham called the Sarasota case "eerily similar" to the FBI's failure to tell the intelligence committee about a former Saudi civil servant, Omar al-Bayoumi, who supported two hijackers while they were living in San Diego. Graham said an investigator for his committee independently unearthed the information about al-Bayoumi.

"Why did the U.S. government go to such lengths to cover up the Saudi involvement?" Graham said.

The former Democratic senator from Florida has long been critical of the administration of former President George W. Bush for refusing to release 28 pages of the intelligence committee's report, which allegedly included information about Saudi financial support of terrorists.

Information about the Saudi couple in Sarasota was reported by Anthony Summers, an independent journalist and co-author of The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of 9/11 and Osama bin Laden, and Dan Christensen, editor of the BrowardBulldog.org.

Abdulazzi al-Hiijjii, his wife Anoud and their small children resided in a home owned by Anoud's father, Esam Ghazzawi, in the gated Sarasota subdivision called Prestancia, according to the report.

The report said the FBI learned of the couple from a suspicious neighbor on the day of the attacks.

According to the report, the FBI connected the couple to more than a dozen terrorists through telephone records and through their car license tags and drivers licenses as they passed through the subdivision's security gate.

Among the terrorists who visited the home or called the couple was 9/11 leader Mohamed Atta, the report said.

The report was based on quotes from an unnamed counterterrorism official, a neighbor, subdivision administrators, the security guard and the subdivision lawyer, who said the FBI tried to get him to lure the homeowner back to the U.S.

According to the report, the Sarasota couple returned to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia with Anoud's father after abandoning their home.

Saudi couple who left country quickly not a threat: FBI

http://www.tampabay.com/news/saudi-couple-who-left-country-quickly-not-a-threat-fbi/1191192

By Susan Taylor Martin, Times Senior Correspondent
In Print: Tuesday, September 13, 2011

To neighbors in their gated community in Sarasota, the abrupt, seemingly permanent departure of a young Saudi couple shortly before the Sept. 11 attacks seemed suspicious enough to warrant calls and e-mails to the FBI.

But Abdulaziz al-Hijji had just graduated from the University of South Florida and was soon to take a job with Saudi Arabia's huge oil company. His wife, Anoud, returned in 2003 to arrange for the sale of their house.

The circumstances under which the al-Hijjis left Sarasota in early September 2001 have prompted speculation they might have had ties to some of the Sept. 11 hijackers. A Fort Lauderdale website first reported last week that phone and gate records linked the al-Hijjis' home to hijackers including Mohamed Atta.

Former Florida Sen. Bob Graham, who co-chaired the congressional inquiry into the attacks, said Friday that the FBI did not tell him about the purported links. He called for a new investigation into the extent of the Saudi role in the hijackings.

On Monday, however, the FBI said it had investigated all leads about the attacks, including the Sarasota case, and turned over all information to Graham's committee and the 9/11 Commission. The commission's executive director, Philip D. Zelikow, said, "We had very good access to FBI reports and we did not think the FBI was holding back stuff.''

A fuller picture is emerging of the al-Hijjis in Sarasota, where they married in 1995 when he was 22 and she was 17. They moved into a home owned by Anoud's parents in the upscale Prestancia community.

Property manager Jone Weist said she quickly had contact with the couple because they failed to keep up the lawn and pay their homeowners association fees.

Anoud, who spoke fluent English, alternated between Western dress and the black abaya and head scarf of Saudi women. At first she stayed home with the couple's twins, then joined her husband in studying at USF in Tampa, Weist said.

"She was very proud to be able to say she was finally going to college and taking design courses so she could work with her father'' — Essam Ghazzawi, a noted Saudi designer of luxury properties, Weist said.

On Labor Day weekend, 2001, neighbors were surprised to see huge piles of trash in front of the couple's home. The family also left three vehicles.

A few weeks after the al-Hijjis' departure, FBI and Sarasota County deputies swarmed the house and found dirty diapers along with personal belongings. Weist said that Larry Berberich, then president of the homeowners association and an adviser to the Sheriff's Office, told her that agents took a few computers and an answering machine.

Although some neighbors said they heard that the couple were never coming back, Anoud al-Hijji and her mother-in-law returned in mid 2003 after paying the delinquent homeowners association fees, Weist said. The house sold that September.

The Ghazzawis and al-Hijjis could not be reached for comment. On Linked In, a social networking site, a person identifying himself as Abdulaziz al-Hijji said he works as a career counselor for Saudi Aramco, the Saudi oil company. He lists his education as "University of South Florida.'' The school confirmed Monday that al-Hijji graduated in August 2001.

The possible ties between the couple and some of the hijackers were first reported by BrowardBulldog.org, an investigative website that broke the Sarasota story with Irish journalist Anthony Summers.

The story was based in part on information from Berberich. It quoted an unidentified counterterrorism officer who said agents found that phone records and the Prestancia gate records linked the house to the hijackers.

Berberich did not return calls from the St. Petersburg Times. Asked about the comments made by him and the anonymous officer, the FBI issued a statement:

"With respect to recent reports about the Sarasota area, there is no new information related to the 9/11 hijackers. During the course of the 9/11 investigation, the FBI followed up on numerous leads and tips . . . most of which, including this one, were resolved and determined not to be related to any threat nor connected to the 9/11 plot. All of the documentation pertaining to the 9/11 investigation was made available to the 9/11 Commission" and the congressional committee.

Graham could not be reached for comment Monday.

Saudi couple in Fla. part of 9/11? FBI says no, others raise questions

http://openchannel.msnbc.msn.com/_n...art-of-911-fbi-says-no-others-raise-questions

9/14/2011

A news report about a Saudi family that disappeared from their home in Sarasota, Fla., just two weeks before the 9/11 attacks has brought an angry response from the co-chair of a congressional Sept. 11 committee.

Bob Graham, who was a senator from Florida when he co-chaired the panel, tells msnbc tv he contacted President Barack Obama's terrorism adviser after hearing about the news report, which documented that the family had had contact with three of the 9/11 pilot hijackers.

"I ... urged him to pursue an investigation of these matters, both in Sarasota and elsewhere ... and then hopefully release that information to the American people," Graham said Monday on The Dylan Ratigan Show, suggesting that other Saudi families in the U.S. might have also had contact with the terrorists, most of whom were Saudi.

Reuters reported that the FBI office in Tampa issued a statement Monday saying the Sarasota case was one of many leads that "were resolved and determined not to be related to any threat nor connected to the 9/11 plot."

Graham said he had no reason to doubt the news report, which said the couple and their two children abruptly abandoned their luxury home, leaving behind a full refrigerator, clothes, furnishings and a new car in the driveway.

The report was published by BrowardBulldog.org, a nonprofit news site, and was simultaneously published on the Miami Herald website.

If true, it reveals another Saudi terrorism connection that the FBI never disclosed to the public or to the 2002 joint Congressional intelligence committee investigating the attacks, said Graham.

Reuters quoted Graham as calling the Sarasota case "eerily similar" to the FBI's failure to tell the intelligence committee about a former Saudi civil servant, Omar al-Bayoumi, who supported two hijackers while they were living in San Diego.

Graham said an investigator for his committee independently unearthed the information about al-Bayoumi.

"Why did the U.S. government go to such lengths to cover up the Saudi involvement?" Graham said.

The Democrat has long been critical of the administration of former President George W. Bush for refusing to release 28 pages of the intelligence committee's report, which allegedly included information about Saudi financial support of terrorists.

Information about the Saudi couple in Sarasota was reported by Anthony Summers, an independent journalist and co-author of "The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of 9/11 and Osama bin Laden," and Dan Christensen, editor of the BrowardBulldog.org.

Summers said on msnbc tv that a hushed-up inquiry found that "three of the (9/11) pilot hijackers had all been in touch with the Saudis in that house."

Abdulazzi al-Hiijjii, his wife Anoud and their two children resided in a home owned by Anoud's father, Esam Ghazzawi, in the gated Sarasota subdivision called Prestancia, according to the report.

The news report said the FBI learned of the couple from a suspicious neighbor on the day of the attacks.

According to the report, the FBI connected the couple to more than a dozen terrorists through telephone records and through their car license tags and driver's licenses as they passed through the subdivision's security gate.

Among the terrorists who visited the home or called the couple was 9/11 leader Mohamed Atta, the report said.

The news report was based on information from an unnamed counterterrorism official, a neighbor, subdivision administrators, the subdivision security guard and the subdivision lawyer, who said the FBI tried to get him to lure the homeowner back to the United States.

According to the report, the Sarasota couple returned to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with Anoud's father after abandoning their home.

Explore Saudi-Sarasota link

http://www.heraldtribune.com/articl...838/-1/news?Title=Explore-Saudi-Sarasota-link

Published: Wednesday, September 14, 2011 at 1:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, September 13, 2011 at 6:55 p.m.

A statement by FBI Miami — discounting new reports of a possible 9/11 link to a Saudi family that once lived in Sarasota — is wholly unsatisfying.

It points to a need to release information long withheld by the U.S. government.

The FBI statement is at odds with a counterterrorism agent's revelation that the family had received phone calls from numbers linked to the 9/11 hijackers — some of whom took flight training in Venice.

The FBI statement also conflicts with reports that the family was visited by people using a car licensed to Mohamed Atta — who crashed the first plane into the World Trade Center that terrible September morning in 2001.

Last week's bombshell report about the former Sarasota family — heretofore undisclosed despite intense media coverage of the 9/11 investigation and the attacks' al-Qaida perpetrators — was written by independent reporters Anthony Summers and Dan Christensen. It was widely published and led to further reporting by the Herald-Tribune, which detailed the Saudi family's sudden abandonment of their home in the Prestancia subdivision less than two weeks before the 9/11 tragedy.

Late Friday, the FBI confirmed that it had investigated the family but said the case was "determined not to be related to any threat nor connected to the 9/11 plot."

The FBI said all documentation "pertaining to the 9/11 investigation" was given to the congressional Joint Inquiry that examined the 9/11 tragedy.

But retired Sen. Bob Graham, co-leader of that joint inquiry, said Congress never received word of the Sarasota case.

He sees the discrepancy as another in a long line of U.S. government actions that seem to downplay or hide the possibility that certain Saudis — living in the U.S. and connected to Saudi Arabia's government or its large royal family — may have aided the hijackers.

Graham's frustration is not new. In 2003, he and other members of Congress fought the Bush administration's censoring of such details. He wants the Obama administration to make the information public.

On Monday, U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, whose 11th District includes part of Manatee County, urged the chairman of the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to "investigate the matter and determine exactly what was investigated and reported to Congress in 2001 and during the years of inquiry thereafter regarding these individuals with ties to the 9/11 hijackers."

This week, Graham told BrowardBulldog.org — which broke the story about the Saudi family in Sarasota — that deeper investigations should be mounted in all the U.S. communities where the 9/11 hijackers lived in the run-up to the attacks.

We second Graham's call.

Americans already know in all too painful detail that most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, as was Osama bin Laden.

Less publicized are reports suggesting that money and support for the hijackers came from people with ties to the Saudi government and/or monarchy. None were officially held accountable.

Is that because of Saudi Arabia's enormous importance as an oil supplier and as a base for what passes for Middle East stability? Graham suspects so.

Whatever the answer, the public deserves a true accounting.

FBI: No link between Sarasota family and 9/11 plot
Tampa’s FBI office said the agency investigated the disappearance of a Saudi family from their Sarasota home days before the 9/11 terrorist attacks and found no links to the terrorist plot.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/09/15/2409359/fbi-no-link-between-sarasota-family.html

By Dan Christensen
Special to The Miami Herald

A top Florida FBI agent said Thursday that members of a Saudi family living quietly near Sarasota were questioned after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but no evidence was found that linked them to the hijackers who slammed jetliners into New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

A week after The Miami Herald published a story showing ties between the family and some of the terrorists, Tampa’s head FBI agent, Steven Ibison, released a statement Thursday saying the FBI investigated “suspicions surrounding” the Sarasota home, but never found evidence tying the family members to the hijackers.

“There was no connection found to the 9/11 plot,” said the statement, released to the St. Petersburg Times.

The agency’s statement came just days after U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., asked for a House investigation into the events surrounding the Sarasota family, which abruptly left the home several days before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, leaving behind three vehicles, food in the refrigerator and toys in the swimming pool.

The FBI’s official version, the second in a week, conflicts sharply with reports from people who worked at the homeowners’ association and a counterterrorism officer who joined the investigation.

A senior administrator at the luxury community told The Herald that cars used by the 9/11 hijackers — the tag numbers noted by security guards at the gate — drove to the entrance asking to visit the family at various times before the attacks. One of the cars was linked to terrorist leader Mohamed Atta, said administrator Larry Berberich.

In addition, a counterterrorism officer who requested anonymity said agents also linked telephone calls between the home and known hijacking suspects in the year before the attacks.

So far, the FBI’s response to the discovery has drawn criticism from former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., who said he was never told of the Sarasota investigation when he was co-chair of the congressional inquiry into the 9/11 attacks. Thursday’s FBI statement said the agency provided all the information to the congressional inquiry.

Graham, who appeared on national television this week, said the FBI failed to provide information in the years after 9/11 linking members of the terrorist team to other Saudis in California until congressional investigators discovered it themselves.

“It was not because the FBI gave us the information. We had a very curious and effective investigator who found out,” Graham told the MSNBC cable television network.

In an appearance Monday on MSNBC, Graham said he spoke with President Barack Obama’s counterterrorism advisor. He said he has gone to the White House’s chief of counterterrorism to ask that the administration look into the Sarasota case.

The FBI, which has not released any results of its investigation, said family members who lived in the home owned by Saudi financier Esam Ghazzawi were tracked down and interviewed about the case after the attacks.

It was not clear from Thursday’s statement whether the FBI or Saudi intelligence conducted the interrogations. The family was believed to have flown to Saudi Arabia after briefly stopping in Virginia several days before Sept. 11.

Scott McKay, a Sarasota lawyer for the Prestancia Homeowners’ Association in its claim for unpaid dues, told The Herald that the FBI tried to get him to bring back the Saudis to Florida for the sale of the home.

McKay said he tried on behalf of the agency, but Ghazzawi was able to sign his name before a notary at the U.S. embassy in Lebanon in September 2003.

FBI Says Saudi Family in Sarasota Not Connected to 9/11
Law enforcement agency found no evidence from published reports that al-Hijjis had ties to the hijackers.

http://www.theledger.com/article/20110916/NEWS/110919466/1374?p=1&tc=pg

By SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN & STEPHEN NOHLGREN, ST. PETERSBURG TIMES
Published: Friday, September 16, 2011 at 11:53 p.m.
Last Modified: Friday, September 16, 2011 at 11:53 p.m.

The FBI said that it had interviewed members of a Saudi Arabian family that left Sarasota shortly before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and found no evidence they were connected to the hijackers or the terror plot.

In what he called a statement "to correct the public record," Steven Ibison, special agent in charge of the Tampa office, took issue with a recent story that claimed the FBI found "troubling ties" between the hijackers and the al-Hijji family, the residents of a home in a gated Sarasota community.

As the FBI investigated leads after Sept. 11, "family members were located and interviewed," the statement said.

"At no time did the FBI develop evidence that connected the family members to any of the 9/11 hijackers, as suggested in the article, and there was no connection to the 9/11 plot."

The FBI's statement did not say where or when it interviewed the family members.

The statement, elaborating on one released Monday by the FBI, further called into question the accuracy of the story by Irish author Anthony Summers and Florida journalist Dan Christensen.

First appearing on the website Browardbulldog.org, the story was reprinted by the Miami Herald and followed by other media, including the St. Petersburg Times.

The Saudi couple drew suspicion from neighbors after the terrorist attacks because they appeared to have abandoned the home and some vehicles.

But the Times later found plausible reasons for their departure. Abdulaziz al-Hijji had just graduated from the University of South Florida and was soon to take a job with a Saudi oil company. When they were unable to rent out the home furnished, Anoud al-Hijji returned two years later to arrange a sale.

In its original story, Browardbulldog.org said that a "link analysis" of incoming and outgoing phone calls "lined up with the known suspects." Link analysis is an investigative technique that does not rely on direct contact between parties.

Despite a request from the Times, the FBI did not specifically deny the most serious allegation in the Browardbulldog.org story — that name and vehicle information for hijackers Mohamed Atta and Ziad Jarrah "fit that of drivers entering Prestancia on their way to visit" the Saudis' home.

The FBI would not comment on whether it reviewed the Prestancia community's gate records because " it's not our policy to discuss any investigative techniques," said David Couvertier, an FBI spokesman in Tampa.

The story's sources for that allegation were an anonymous "counterterrorism agent" and former Prestancia resident Larry Berberich, who represented the homeowners association on security issues.

Ibison's statement said the unidentified source for the story apparently was not an FBI agent and "had no access to the facts and circumstances pertaining to the resolution of this lead — otherwise this person would know this matter was resolved without any nexus to the 9/11 plot."

However, Summers told the Times on Wednesday that the " counterterrorism agent " had seen FBI reports. Berberich has not responded to several calls from the Times.

Summers met with the "agent" and Berberich recently while in the United States to promote his book, The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of Osama bin Laden and 9/11, due out next month.

Former Sen. Bob Graham, the Florida Democrat who co-chaired the congressional committee that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks, said Thursday that he wants to see the documents on which the FBI based its conclusion that the al-Hijjis had no ties to the hijackers or the plot.

"This is exactly what happened in San Diego when we were told by the FBI that there was no information that would have linked any activities in San Diego to terrorists," Graham said. But when investigators got there, Graham said, "they found these very extensive relations between two of the hijackers and Saudi entities in San Diego."

The FBI has said it turned over all information it collected on the attacks to Graham's committee and the 9/11 Commission.

U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, a Tampa Democrat, said she "appreciated" the FBI's statements this week. However, she repeated her call for the House and Senate intelligence committees to verify what information the agency had given Congress and the 9/11 panel.

Who Funded 9/11 Attacks? Insurers, 9/11 Families Still Want Answers

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/fund...anies-911-families-continue/story?id=14512391

By SUSANNA KIM
Sept. 15, 2011

After the 10-year anniversary of Sept. 11 and six months after the death of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, questions still remain regarding who funded the attacks that led to thousands of deaths and billions of dollars in damages.

The latest legal pursuit is that of an insurance syndicate of British insurer Lloyd's, which says the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, its banks and various charities should be financially responsible for the $215 million it paid in insurance settlements to 9/11 victims' families.

William Doyle's family is one of the families determined to find those who funded the attacks on 9/11. Doyle's son, Joseph, was killed in the north tower of the World Trade Center.

William Doyle told ABC News there are "concrete facts" showing the majority of the hijackers' funding originated from Saudi Arabia. He said the government helped "shield" some of that evidence when the joint congressional committee investigating the attacks published a report in December 2002 and redacted about 28 pages.

Doyle and others believe names of Saudi financiers and companies have been removed.

"How could they hide under diplomatic immunity?" Doyle said of those he believes have been protected. "People don't get missiles to strike down helicopters by themselves. Someone is funding them. If someone is funding them, let it be known and cut out their funding."

Former Florida Democratic Sen. Bob Graham, former co-chair of the congressional committee, has called on the government to reopen its 9/11 investigation.

Thousands of individuals and companies are still pursuing a multi-district litigation suit in New York called "Re: Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001," which has dismissed about 127 defendants, according to the law firm Motley Rice, which represents 6,700 individuals for that case, including Doyle. There are about 24 remaining active defendants, says Motley Rice.

Craig Unger, journalist and author of "House of Bush, House of Saud," said there is widespread reason to believe prominent Saudis were funding terrorists through Islamic charities. But the United States-Saudi relationship is "duplicitous from both sides of the fence," in part because Saudi Arabia is the world's largest oil producer and exporter.

"The relationship has soiled contradictions and we turn a blind eye to various aspects," he said. "The U.S. is so dependent on oil, you don't want to rock the boat."

Despite unanimous dismissals of Lloyd's nine defendants in cases in New York, the insurer's suit, filed in a federal court in Pennsylvania on Sept. 8, claims "al Qaeda would not have possessed the capacity to conceive, plan and execute the September 11th attacks" without the funding.

Sean Carter, an attorney with law firm Cozen O'Connor, whose client is the Lloyd's syndicate, said the lawsuit seeks recovery for amounts that were paid to settle claims brought against airlines and security companies related to Sept. 11.

"The theme of the lawsuit is that the ultimate responsibility for a terrorist attack of this nature should rest with parties that were intentional actors rather than parties alleged to have been merely negligent," Carter said.

The Pennsylvania lawsuit lists nine defendants, including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Saudi Red Crescent Society, which is associated with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

"Though this case has a different plaintiff, the suit is essentially based on the same claims around the tragic events of 9/11. However the court has dismissed most of the defendants," Lynne Bernabei of the law firm Bernabei & Wachtel, representing the Saudi Red Crescent Society, told ABC News.

Bernabei said the lawsuit is another attempt to get around the rulings which have been mostly adverse to the plaintiffs. Her client was in part dismissed because it was not shown to have any involvement and because it is a sovereign defendant, or state entity, for which the requirements to sue were not met.

Mark Hansen, whose law firm, Kelloff, Huber, Hansen, Todd, Evans & Figel, represented the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the previous 9/11 suits, said the firm does not comment on pending litigation.

While 2,983 families of 9/11 victims and 2,300 physically injured have received over $7 billion from the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001, 94 families decided not to participate in the fund. Those families received on average an estimated $5 million each, using figures from the report of Sheila Birnbaum, the 9/11 mediator. However, that information is confidential.

Only one victim's family is still pursuing litigation against United Airlines and security company Huntleigh under the plaintiff's arguments they were negligent in failing to prevent the attacks. A hearing will take place Monday in New York with a trial date scheduled for November.

Saudi/Florida link to 9/11

http://www.vindy.com/news/2011/sep/21/saudiflorida-link-to-911/?newswatch

Published: Wed, September 21, 2011 @ 12:00 a.m.

The Miami Herald: 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.

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.

Seeking answers
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.

Questions over Saudis' abrupt exit from Sarasota still lingering

http://www.tampabay.com/news/questions-over-saudis-abrupt-exit-from-sarasota-still-lingering/1193346

By Susan Taylor Martin and Stephen Nohlgren, Times Staff Writers
In Print: Sunday, September 25, 2011

It began with an Irish journalist and a four-year-old tip. Then a meeting in a Florida motel room, an anonymous source and finally, a blockbuster story published just days before the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The website Browardbulldog.org said the FBI had found "troubling ties'' between the hijackers and members of a Saudi family who "abandoned'' their Sarasota home and cars shortly before 9/11. But, the story said, the FBI had never turned over the information to Congress or the 9/11 Commission.

So meticulously planned were the attacks that it still strains the imagination to think that 19 foreigners could have pulled them off without ample help from confederates in the United States. So the Bulldog story was read by many, including an influential former U.S. senator, as evidence that the government mishandled, even withheld, key information from Congress and the 9/11 Commission.

But the FBI insisted "there was no connection found" between the Saudi family and the 9/11 plot. And other evidence suggests the family's departure might not have been all that surprising.

Was it a case of different people seeing very different things, viewed through the kaleidoscope of fact and rumor still swirling around one of the most wrenching events in American history?

Rich and good-looking
Here are some facts about the young couple in the house at 4224 Escondito Circle:

Anoud and Abdulaziz al-Hijji were born in Saudi Arabia. It is not clear how they landed 7,000 miles away in Sarasota, though Anoud had ties to the United States long before 9/11.

Her mother, Deborah, is an American citizen from California. Her older brother, international businessman Abed Ghazzawi, was born in the United States, graduated from American University in Washington, D.C., and is a director of the EastWest Institute, a New York-based think tank.

(Another director is Michael Chertoff, former head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the agency created after 9/11 to protect Americans from terrorists.)

Anoud's father, Esam Abbas Ghazzawi, is a Saudi interior designer with an international clientele. In 1995 he and his wife were staying in a waterfront mansion on Sarasota County's exclusive Longboat Key.

Jone Weist, a Sarasota property manager, recalls reading an article about Ghazzawi.

"The thrust was that he owned this interior design company that specializes in houses of 25,000 square feet or more,'' Weist said. "It said that in order to accommodate all the beautiful furnishings and antiques that he used in his business, he had warehouses all over the world.''

Accompanying the story were photographs of opulent homes Ghazzawi had designed, along with a photo of the man himself — "to die-for good looking, around 60, he had what appeared to be a white cashmere suit,'' Weist said.

In 1995, the Ghazzawis bought a 3,300-square-foot house in Prestancia, a gated community where basketball star Michael Jordan briefly lived. Soon afterward, their daughter Anoud moved in with her new husband.

Court records show the couple, he 22 and she 17, were married May 12, 1995 in Sarasota. Performing the ceremony was notary public Malik Sardar Khan, a Miami real estate agent and one of the top officials of the World Muslim Congress.

As the al-Hijjis settled into married life, soon to be joined by twins and later another baby, they ran afoul of the Prestancia homeowners association for letting their yard go to weed.

"The HOA had great difficulties with them, nothing criminal but not a neighborhood where you let the grass grow for a month,'' said Weist, then Prestancia's property manger.

One neighbor helped Abdulaziz fix his sprinkler system so he could get his lawn back in shape. Other neighbors sometimes babysat for the kids. A nanny joined the family, enabling Anoud as well as her husband to attend the University of South Florida in Tampa.

In August 2001, Abdulaziz graduated with a degree in management information and had a job waiting at Saudi Arabia's huge oil company, Saudi Aramco. The family left around the end of the month. There was one sign they might have intended to return at some point: They talked to real estate agents about renting out the house with its expensive furnishings.

Then came Sept. 11 and news that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, including some who had attended flight schools not far from where the al-Hijjis lived.

To neighbors, what appeared unremarkable before 9/11 was suddenly suspicious. Why had a Saudi family moved out just two weeks before the attacks? Why had they left vehicles, food and furniture, as if beating a hasty retreat?

"I went on the FBI website and said, 'I don't want to waste your time on false leads, but here's something you might want to look into,' " recalled neighbor Patrick Gallagher, one of several people who contacted the agency.

But none of this would be known to the wider world until almost a decade later.

A nagging question
Irish author Anthony Summers, 69, has written several books about famous people and events, including Richard Nixon, J. Edgar Hoover and the JFK assassination.

About five years ago, he began researching The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of 9/11 and Osama bin Laden, which came out this summer.

It's well documented, with 118 pages of footnotes, and asserts a sharp point of view: That U.S. officials bungled signs of an imminent attack and that the Bush administration suppressed evidence of a strong Saudi influence.

Early in his research, Summers told the Times, he encountered a law enforcement official who mentioned that some hijackers had ties to a Saudi couple in Sarasota.

At the time, Summers was focused on the hijackers' pilot training and not so much on the Saudi angle.

"But it gnawed at me,'' he said. "Later, this was a thing I knew I should have gone further on.''

When he recently returned to the United States to promote his book, he said, he paid his way to Sarasota to question his source more closely. Summers won't identify the man, but called him a "counter-terrorism agent'' who was in Sarasota on 9/11 when President Bush was reading to schoolchildren. During the investigation that followed, Summers said, the source had access to FBI reports.

The source related how the al-Hijjis left Sarasota just before the attacks. He said telephone "link analysis'' had seemingly tied the couple to terrorists, including Mohamed Atta, pilot of the first plane to hit the World Trade Center.

Phone link analysis is an investigative technique that doesn't necessarily show direct contact, but looks at whom a target subject communicates with and with whom those people, in turn, communicate.

Since that analysis is subjective, Summers said, he was more intrigued when the "counter-terrorism agent'' said the Prestancia guard gate had recorded car and driver license information that linked Atta and other hijackers to the al-Hijjis.

The agent suggested that Summers also talk to Larry Berberich, a former homeowners association president who had overseen security at Prestancia and was present when the guard gate records were pulled.

Summers interviewed the two men in his motel room. He said they did not seem to be altering their stories to make them fit neatly together, but occasionally jogged each other's memories "in a way that added to credibility,'' he said. "One would say, 'Wasn't that in January?', and the other would say, 'No, I remember, because it was right after my daughter's birthday.' ''

Only the agent knew about the phone link analysis, but both men seemed to know what had transpired at the guard gate, Summers said.

Summers took his scoop to Dan Christensen, a friend and veteran South Florida investigative reporter who founded BrowardBulldog.org ("News you can sink your teeth into"), a nonprofit website distributed through Reuters. Together, they met with former Sen. Bob Graham, a Florida Democrat.

Graham had co-chaired the joint congressional committee that investigated the 9/11 attacks. The FBI was supposed to forward all pertinent information, but Graham said he remembered nothing of the Sarasota couple. Nor did anything appear in the 9/11 commission report.

That didn't surprise him, Graham said later. He had long felt that the Republican Bush administration had played down, if not suppressed, signs that support networks for the hijackers reached into high levels of the Saudi government. Graham had recently written a novel based on that premise.

A shadow network?
Christensen and Summers sold the BrowardBulldog story to the Miami Herald, which published it on Sept. 7. It appeared on the Bulldog's website the next day.

Here's how the story began:

Just two weeks before 9/11 hijackers slammed into the Pentagon and World Trade Center, members of a Saudi family abruptly left their Sarasota home, leaving a brand new car in the driveway, a refrigerator full of food, fruit on the counter — and an open safe in the master bedroom. In the weeks to follow, law enforcement agents not only discovered the home was visited by vehicles used by the hijackers, but phone calls were linked between the home and those who carried out the death flights — including leader Mohamed Atta — in discoveries never before revealed to the public.

Graham reacted sharply. He called it "the most important thing about 9/11 to surface in the last seven or eight years.'' He urged President Barack Obama to reopen the investigation to determine "the full extent of Saudi involvement prior to 9/11.''

Graham said the al-Hijjis and Anoud's wealthy father could have helped form a shadow support system for the hijackers. He cited the example of a Saudi man in San Diego who rented an apartment for two of the hijackers and left the United States two months before 9/11.

But as the St. Petersburg Times and other media followed the story about the Sarasota family, new information shed contrasting light on the nature of their departure.

Michael Otis, a former Sarasota sheriff's detective who helped the FBI check leads, said he saw the inside of the house some days after the hijackings. Did it look like it had been abandoned in a state of disarray?

"Maybe not really,'' he said.

Otis said the sheriff's office investigated to make certain there hadn't been any foul play. "But as far as gate records and things that appeared in that article, I never heard of any of that,'' he said.

Berberich, of the homeowners association, did not respond to calls from the Times. Nor did former Sarasota Sheriff Bill Balkwill, who set up a counterterrorism unit and had access to at least some confidential FBI terrorism information. (He and Berberich, a wealthy political supporter and adviser, were so close that Berberich once had an office in the sheriff's department.)

In 2003, Anoud al-Hijji and her mother returned to deal with the house, which sold in September of that year. The family could not be reached for comment so the following questions remain unanswered:

Did the al-Hijjis have to depart so abruptly in 2001 that they didn't have time to clean out the refrigerator? Or did a harried mother with three young kids leave the chore for someone else, perhaps a rental agent or property manager?

Was the empty safe a sign of something nefarious? Or the logical result of removing cash and valuables before going away?

Did the al-Hijjis "abandon'' vehicles and furniture? Or would shipping them to Saudi Arabia have been so costly and cumbersome that they were left for the couple's representatives to handle? And why didn't Anoud return for two years? One possible answer: After 9/11, it became far harder for people from Muslim countries to get visas to go to the United States. A year before the attacks, there were 60,508 non-immigrant visas issued to Saudis. The year after, the number plunged to 14,126.

Still not convinced
Of all the allegations, the most serious involves the guard gate records. The Broward Bulldog's initial story said the home was visited by vehicles used by the hijackers. A later story, quoting a "senior administrator'' at Prestancia, said that "cars used by the 9/11 hijackers drove to the entrance asking to visit the family at various times before the attacks.''

It is not clear from the Bulldog stories that any of the hijackers themselves visited or even tried to visit the al-Hijji family.

Despite a request from the Times to confirm or deny it, the FBI has not addressed the question of whether gate records showed any visits or attempted visits by terrorists to the al-Hijjis' home.

But in a statement, Steven Ibison, special agent in charge of the Tampa office, said that "family members were located and interviewed'' during the agency's investigation into the Sept. 11 attacks. "At no time did the FBI develop evidence that connected the family members to any of the 9/11 hijackers, as suggested in the (Bulldog) article, and there was no connection to the 9/11 plot,'' Ibison said. The statement did not say where or when the family members were interviewed. Or by whom.

Graham wants more details.

More than a week ago, he asked the FBI to provide the number of its file on the al-Hijji family and the date the file was transmitted to the congressional committee that investigated the 9/11 attacks. That way he could have the committee's archives searched to see exactly what information the FBI had sent.

As of Friday, Graham was still waiting.

Former Senator reveals secrets about 9/11, Saudis

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/former-senator-reveals-secrets-about-911-saudis/nFWc5/

By John Bachman
11/4/2011

ATLANTA — It's one of the largest sales of U.S. weapons ever. The government has approved sending billions of dollars worth of equipment to Saudi Arabia. But there are more concerns the sales shouldn't go through, because of new suspicions about the Saudis' role in the Sept. 11 attacks.

The terrorist attacks of 9-11 were the deadliest on U.S. soil. Nineteen hijackers carried out the plot. Fifteen of them were from Saudi Arabia. There's at least one person who believes that's more than a coincidence.

Former Senator Bob Graham was born in Georgia, but represented Florida in Congress. He co-chaired the Joint Congressional Committee that investigated the attacks.

Graham wrote a book based on the committee's 800-page report, but government security officials stepped in.

"In that report there was one chapter that primarily dealt with the role of the Saudis in 9-11," Graham said. "That was the only chapter in the book that was totally censored."

So Graham wrote a second book, this one fiction. He called "Keys to the Kingdom" informed fiction, and said it's filled with a lot of events that really happened.

One example is a Saudi agent Omar al-Bayoumi who lived in San Diego in 2001. Graham said the agent was paid for a job he never did, and was given a huge raise the same month two of the hijackers showed up in San Diego.

Channel 2's John Bachman asked Graham what that reveals.

"It tells us that Saudi Arabia is not the ally we think it is," Graham said.

Still, the United States is selling Saudi Arabia $60 billion in weapons. It is one of the largest sales of arms ever, and includes F-15 fighter jets, helicopters and missiles.

Retired Georgia National Guard Lt. Gen. David Poythress said keeping a close relationship with Saudi Arabia makes sense, not just because of oil, but because the Saudis help protect the U.S. fleet in the Persian Gulf.

"At the same time, they need domestic and regional military security. We can provide that," Poythress said.

Bachman asked him about the allegations of the Saudis connection to September 11.

"Who will ever know. Clearly, there's this kind of incestuous relationship between the royal family and the most radical elements of Islam in the Arabia Peninsula," Poythress said. "The royal family has no doubt turned a blind eye to a great deal of the fundamental Islamic radicalism."

Ten years after the attacks, even more evidence is surfacing. Just weeks ago, the Miami Herald reported a connection between September 11 ringleader Mohammad Atta and a Saudi family who lived in Sarasota, Florida.

"At least in 5 instances, Atta visited in his home," Graham said. "Extensive telephone conversations. We also know that on August 30th, 12 days before 9-11, that fairly quickly in a very rushed situation, (the family) left Sarasota and returned to Saudi Arabia."

The FBI said it interviewed and cleared the family of any involvement in 9-11.

Graham said he's skeptical. He said thousands of Americans already have paid the ultimate price for America's close relationship with Saudi Arabia.

Graham believes more Americans still are paying the price. "Because we're still treating the Saudis as if it were a loyal ally."

Graham: Still no FBI records on Sarasota 9/11 probe
The agency has not been able to show that it disclosed any information about the investigation to a congressional committee that looked into the terrorist attacks. The FBI investigated possible links between a Saudi family in Sarasota and some of the 9/11

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/11/10/2496033/graham-still-no-fbi-records-on.html#comment

By Dan Christensen
BrowardBulldog.org
11/10/2011

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 bipartisan joint 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, called to report the abrupt departure from their luxury home of a Saudi family about two weeks before four passenger jets originating in Boston, Newark and Washington were hijacked. The family left for Saudi Arabia, leaving behind cars, clothes in the closet and a refrigerator full of food.

Neighbors said agents searched the house and hauled away bags of belongings. 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 involved in the investigation.

They said the security records revealed that the home was visited by vehicles used by 9/11 terrorist leader Mohamed Atta and fellow hijacker-pilot 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 issued separate statements denying that any connection existed between the family and the terrorists.

Graham, a Democrat, 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, so the records could be located. At one point, Graham said, FBI agents produced 10 file numbers. But intelligence committee personnel deter mined “there was no information in any of the 10 files that was relevant” to the Sarasota investigation, he said.

After failing to meet several subsequent self-imposed deadlines, 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 has turned down a recent Freedom of Information request The Herald and Broward Bulldog that sought agency records about agents’ findings in Sarasota, saying release of the records would be an invasion of the family’s privacy.

The Saudis who lived in the Prestancia home at 4224 Escondito Circle were Abdulaziz A. Al-Hijji, his wife, Anoud, and their small children. The home was owned by Anoud’s parents, Esam and Deborah Ghazzawi.

Former Sen. Graham talks about novel

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20111210/ARTICLE/111219984

By Kim Hackett
Published: Saturday, December 10, 2011 at 7:20 p.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, December 10, 2011 at 7:20 p.m.

Retired Senator and two-term Florida Governor Bob Graham speaks in Venice on Tuesday about his recently published novel, "Keys to the Kingdom." The book is a thriller about hijackers and an international conspiracy linking the Saudi Kingdom to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. The Herald Tribune's Kim Hackett talked to him about his novel.

Q: As a member of the 9-11 committee, were you aware of the Sarasota family, Abdulazzi and Anoud al-Hiijjii, and the relationship they had with Sept. 11 mastermind Mohammed Atta and Ziad Jarrah?

A: The answer is no. The FBI had said in their press statement that they had provided documentation to the 9-11 Commission and the joint Congressional Inquiry. It just so happened that three key people on the committees were from Florida. What is unbelievable to me if there had been something that had came to our attention about Sarasota, light bulbs would have gone off. None of us have any recollection of being told about this.

Q: Have you been able to learn about any more support networks in the U.S.?

A: The FBI had the responsibility to do the investigation and they were extremely tight with any information they found. The press release they issued for Sarasota was about word-for-word the same in San Diego.

Q: You said the chapter in the 9-11 report detailing the Saudi connection was removed. Why do you think the Saudi connection remains such a mystery?

A: It's been suggested the close relationship the Bush family had with the house of Saud going back three generations; the oil — the Saudis have been a reliable source of oil. There's a curious lack of curiosity about the Saudi ties.

Q: You say about 40 percent of the book is fact. How did you come up with 40 percent?

A: I counted the pages and about forty percent were factual.

Q: What was the vetting process like with intelligence agencies?

A: Every draft of the novel was submitted and actually there were very few changes.

Q: Your character Billington has the same biography as you. What was it like killing yourself off?

A: I didn't have qualms. We needed to clear the stage so that Tony could be the center of attention. In a movie version, I see Robert Redford playing Billington (laughs); he had to go quickly or we couldn't afford Redford.

Graham shares novel in Lee County
Former senator says book is 40 percent fact, 40 percent speculation and 20 percent fiction.

http://www.news-press.com/article/20111214/NEWS01/312140026/0/springtraining/Graham-shares-novel-Lee-County?odyssey=nav|head

12/14/2011

Florida’s former governor and U.S. Sen. Bob Graham left elected office 11 years ago, but standing in front of a Lee County crowd Tuesday, his talk was all politics — only now focused on terrorism and the threat of nuclear war, themes of his new novel, “Keys to the Kingdom.”

Graham has written nonfiction books, but said he had a message, instigated largely by his work as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee before and after 9/11, that he believed might be easier delivered in a fictionalized version, his first novel.

The book is about 40 percent fact, 40 percent “informed speculation,” and 20 percent fiction, said Graham, who relied on knowledge gathered through his work in intelligence matters to strengthen his story.

But much of what a national investigation discovered about Saudi Arabia’s role in the 9/11 attacks was “censored” from official reports issued by his committee, Graham said in his talk before about 40 people at the Lakes Regional Library. “The novel is meant to tell that story,” he said, bringing to light what Graham believes is the Saudis’ role that’s otherwise been underplayed.

The report “was not censored for reasons of national security, but because it was politically inconvenient to disclose the role of the Saudis” in 9/11, Graham said. He also speculated the relationship between the Saudis and the Bush family, along with the U.S. dependence on Saudi oil, may be reasons “why we’ve been so gentle with the Saudis and unwilling to disclose their involvement.”

Frustrated by the secrecy, he said, “I thought I could tell the story of the Saudis’ involvement through a novel,” which underwent review by security officials before publication.

The novel’s hero is a Cuban-American intelligence officer charged with finding nuclear material that’s fallen into the hands of terrorists, and foiling their planned attacks on America. There’s also a U.S. senator — bearing many similarities with Graham —with suspicions about the Saudis’ involvement, and who’s killed under suspicious circumstances.

Graham joked it wasn’t difficult to kill off his character. “I wanted him out of the way early, and his murder was a good way to begin the story.”