Skeptic Project

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1559151.stm</p>

Another of the men named by the FBI as a hijacker in the suicide attacks on Washington and New York has turned up alive and well.

The identities of four of the 19 suspects accused of having carried out the attacks are now in doubt.

Saudi Arabian pilot Waleed Al Shehri was one of five men that the FBI said had deliberately crashed American Airlines flight 11 into the World Trade Centre on 11 September.

His photograph was released, and has since appeared in newspapers and on television around the world.

Now he is protesting his innocence from Casablanca, Morocco.

He told journalists there that he had nothing to do with the attacks on New York and Washington, and had been in Morocco when they happened. He has contacted both the Saudi and American authorities, according to Saudi press reports.

He acknowledges that he attended flight training school at Daytona Beach in the United States, and is indeed the same Waleed Al Shehri to whom the FBI has been referring.

But, he says, he left the United States in September last year, became a pilot with Saudi Arabian airlines and is currently on a further training course in Morocco.

Abdulaziz Al Omari, another of the Flight 11 hijack suspects, has also been quoted in Arab news reports.

He says he is an engineer with Saudi Telecoms, and that he lost his passport while studying in Denver.

Another man with exactly the same name surfaced on the pages of the English-language Arab News.

The second Abdulaziz Al Omari is a pilot for Saudi Arabian Airlines, the report says.

Meanwhile, Asharq Al Awsat newspaper, a London-based Arabic daily, says it has interviewed Saeed Alghamdi.

He was listed by the FBI as a hijacker in the United flight that crashed in Pennsylvania.

And there are suggestions that another suspect, Khalid Al Midhar, may also be alive.

FBI Director Robert Mueller acknowledged on Thursday that the identity of several of the suicide hijackers is in doubt.

"A Saudi man has reported to authorities that he is the real Abdul Aziz Al-Omari, and claims his passport was stolen in 1995 while he studied electrical engineering at the University of Denver. Al-Omari says he informed police of the theft." - ABCNews

"I couldn't believe it when the FBI put me on their list. They gave my name and my date of birth, but I am not a suicide bomber. I am here. I am alive. I have no idea how to fly a plane. I had nothing to do with this." - Telegraph 23rd September 2001

"The name (listed by the FBI) is my name and the birth date is the same as mine, but I am not the one who bombed the World Trade Center in New York," Abdul Aziz Al-Omari told the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper.

"Al-Omari has since been found in Saudi Arabia and is apparently cleared in the case" - New York Times

"Saudi Embassy officials in Washington have challenged his identity. They say a Saudi electrical engineer named Abdul Aziz Al-Omari had his passport and other papers stolen in 1996 in Denver when he was a student and reported the theft to police there at the time." - BBC

"Abdel Aziz Al-Omari and Saïd Hussein Gharamallah Al-Ghamdi, are well in life, the first in Saudi Arabia and the second in Tunisia for nine months." - Wal Fadjri 21st September 2001 (translate)

Omari Number 2

Mr. Al-Omari, a pilot with Saudi Airlines, walked into the US embassy in Jeddah to demand why he was being reported as a dead hijacker in the American media.

"Abdul Aziz Al-Omari is a pilot for Saudi Arabian Airlines" - BBC 23rd September 2001

"A pilot with Saudi Airlines, was astonished to find himself accused of hijacking ­ as well as being dead ­ and has visited the US consulate in Jeddah to demand an explanation." - Independent 17th September 2001

This Al-Omari lives with his wife and four children in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Saeed Al-Ghamdi (Flight 93) (Trained Pilot)

"Saeed Al-Ghamdi is one of three hijackers that US officials have said are linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network." - BBC

No BBC! Mr. Al-Ghamdi is still alive and well and at his job for Tunis Air.

"I was completely shocked. For the past 10 months I have been based in Tunis with 22 other pilots learning to fly an Airbus 320. The FBI provided no evidence of my presumed involvement in the attacks." - Telegraph 23rd September 2001

"Asharq Al Awsat newspaper, a London-based Arabic daily, says it has interviewed Saeed Al-Ghamdi." - BBC 23rd September 2001

"Abdel Aziz Al-Omari and Saïd Hussein Gharamallah Al-Ghamdi, are well in life, the first in Saudi Arabia and the second in Tunisia for nine months." - Wal Fadjri 21st September 2001 (translate)

"..... not dead and had nothing to do with the heinous terror attacks in New York and Washington." - Saudi embassy

Waleed Al-Shehri (Flight 11) (Trained Pilot)

"A sixth person on the FBI's list, Saudi national Waleed Al-Shehri, is living in Casablanca, according to an official with the Royal Air Moroc, the Moroccan commercial airline. According to the unnamed official, Al-Shehri lived in Dayton Beach, Fla., where he took flight training at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Now he works for a Moroccan airline." On Sept. 22, Associated Press reported that Alshehri had spoken to the U.S. embassy in Morocco.

"His photograph was released by the FBI, and has been shown in newspapers and on television around the world. That same Mr Al-Shehri has turned up in Morocco, proving clearly that he was not a member of the suicide attack." - Daily Trust 24th September 2001.

"He was reported to have been in Hollywood, Florida, for a month earlier this year but his father, Ahmed, said that Waleed was alive and well and living in Morocco." - Telegraph

"Another of the men named by the FBI as a hijacker in the suicide attacks on Washington and New York has turned up alive and well." - BBC 23rd September 2001.

Ahmed Al-Nami (Flight 93)

"I'm still alive, as you can see. I was shocked to see my name mentioned by the American Justice Department. I had never even heard of Pennsylvania where the plane I was supposed to have hijacked." He had never lost his passport and found it "very worrying" that his identity appeared to have been "stolen" and published by the FBI without any checks. The FBI had said his "possible residence" was Delray Beach in Florida." - Telegraph 23rd September 2001

Salem Al-Hazmi (Flight 77)

"Mr Al-Hamzi is 26 and had just returned to work at a petrochemical complex in the industrial eastern city of Yanbou after a holiday in Saudi Arabia when the hijackers struck. He was accused of hijacking the American Airlines Flight 77 that hit the Pentagon." - Telegraph 23rd September 2001.

Khalid Al-Mihdhar (Flight 77)

"Saudi officials at the embassy were unable to verify the whereabouts of the fifth accused hijacker, Khalid Al-Mihdhar. However, Arab newspapers say Al-Mihdhar is still alive.

"..... there are suggestions that another suspect, Khalid Al Midhar may also be alive." - BBC 23rd September 2001

Others accused of being involved:

Ameer Bukhari

"Ameer Bukhari died in a small plane crash last year." - CNN Correction

Adnan Bukhari

"Adnan Bukhari is still in Florida" - CNN Correction

Amer Kamfar

".... that a suspect sought by the FBI, Amer Kamfar, was in fact an alive pilot in Arabia. " - Wal Fadjri 21st September 2001 [translate]

Waleed Al-Shehri is not still alive.
http://www.911myths.com/html/waleed_al-shehri_still_alive.html</p>

Wail Al-Shehri is not still alive.
http://www.911myths.com/html/wail_al-shehri_still_alive.html</p>

Abdulaziz Al-Omari is not still alive.
http://www.911myths.com/html/abdulaziz_al_omari_still_alive.html</p>

Mohand Alshehri is not still alive.
http://www.911myths.com/html/mohand_alshehri_still_alive.html</p>

Saleem Al-Hamzi is not still alive.
http://www.911myths.com/html/salem_al-hamzi_still_alive.html</p>

Salid al-Ghamdi is not still alive.
http://www.911myths.com/html/said_al-ghamdi_alive.html</p>

Ahmed Al-Nami is not still alive.
http://www.911myths.com/html/ahmed_al-nami_still_alive.html</p>

Khalid Al Mihdhar is not still alive.
http://www.911myths.com/html/khalid_al_mihdhar_still_alive.html</p>

Mohammed Ahta is not still alive.
http://www.911myths.com/html/mohammed_atta_alive.html</p>

Status of your claim: DEBUNKED.

Plautus, if you click those links, you will see that every single story that you quoted in your above 2 posts is dealt with in detail.

Example:

The story...

Said al-Ghamdi is alive, according to a story published by the BBC.

Meanwhile, Asharq Al Awsat newspaper, a London-based Arabic daily, says it has interviewed Saeed Alghamdi.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1559151.stm</p>

Our take...

The Telegraph expanded on this story in a report published on the 23rd of September:

The Saudi Airlines pilot, Saeed Al-Ghamdi, 25, and Abdulaziz Al-Omari, an engineer from Riyadh, are furious that the hijackers' "personal details" - including name, place, date of birth and occupation - matched their own.

Mr Al-Ghamdi was named as a terrorist on the United Airlines flight that crashed in Pennsylvania - a plane said by some experts to have been heading for the White House.

He first knew that he was on the FBI's list when he was told by a colleague. Speaking from Tunisia, he said: "I was completely shocked. For the past 10 months I have been based in Tunis with 22 other pilots learning to fly an Airbus 320. The FBI provided no evidence of my presumed involvement in the attacks.

"You cannot imagine what it is like to be described as a terrorist - and a dead man - when you are innocent and alive." The airline was angry too. Officials brought Mr Al-Ghamdi back to Saudi Arabia last week for a 10-day holiday to avoid arrest or interrogation.

An official said: "We are consulting lawyers about what action to take to protect the reputation of our pilots." Mr Al-Ghamdi faced further embarrassment when CNN, the American television network, flashed a photograph of him around the world, naming him as a hijack suspect.

The FBI had published his personal details but with a photograph of somebody else, presumably a hijacker who had "stolen" his identity. CNN, however, showed a picture of the real Mr Al-Ghamdi.

He said that CNN had probably got the picture from the Flight Safety flying school he attended in Florida. CNN has since broadcast a clarification saying that the photograph may not be that of the accused.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/09/23/widen23.xml

This seems to be a substantial claim, in that “name, place, date of birth and occupation” are all claimed to match. Of course a report of someone saying this doesn’t make it true, and there’s at least one reason to doubt the claim: the 14th September FBI hijackers list entry for Al-Ghamdi.

1) Saeed Alghamdi - Possible residence: Delray Beach, Florida.
http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel01/091401hj.htm</p>

Even by the 27th FBI list, with photographs (and after the "still alive" Al Ghamdi came forward) this had only expanded to:

Saeed Alghamdi

-Possible residence: Delray Beach, Florida

-Alias: Abdul Rahman Saed Alghamdi; Ali S Alghamdi; Al- Gamdi; Saad M.S. Al Ghamdi; Sadda Al Ghamdi; Saheed Al-Ghamdi; Seed Al Ghamdi
http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel01/092701hjpic.htm</p>

But note there's no mention of nationality (unlike others on the list), when or where he was born, or his occupation. If these were published by the US authorities prior to the 23rd, then why aren’t they included here? If he read details that came from some other source, then we don’t know that they were correct. The idea that his details matched those of the hijacker isn’t in any way substantiated here.

Another complication is that this Alghamdi says he’s been based in Tunis for the last 10 months. During this period the Alghamdi referred to by the FBI had been leaving a paper trail for the US, including a driving licence application that was taken on the 10th of July, 2001 (http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov/notablecases/moussaoui/exhibits/prosecution/MM01005.pdf) -- another indication that we’re talking about two different people. There’s confirmation within the Telegraph story in the talk of the FBI Alghamdi photograph, which the “still alive” Alghamdi says is of “somebody else”.

A later story in the Boston Globe certainly seems to have no problem linking Alghamdi to the other hijackers, and suggesting they were all involved:

The Seqeley mosque was built as a gift to the town by a branch of the prominent and respected Alshehri tribe known as the Seqeley family, construction firm owners who worked closely with the late building magnate Mohammed bin Laden on the winding highway that cuts through the middle of Hamis Mushayt.

It was in this mosque that four young Saudi men - two brothers from the Seqeley family known as Wael and Walid Alshehri and their friends Ahmed Alnami and Saeed Alghamdi from nearby Abha - are believed by several friends and a local cleric to have taken a solemn oath to go and carry out ''jihad.''

Friends who knew them say they gathered in the mosque in the spring of 2000 to pray and meditate in an informal ceremony that bound them to jihad and, if necessary, to die in the defense of Islam. In the months that lay ahead, they began secretly slipping away from their families.

Eventually, they were swept into Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorist network, and US investigators say they were among the Saudis who hijacked four jetliners on Sept. 11.
http://www.boston.com/news/packages/underattack/news/driving_a_wedge/part1_side.shtml</p>

Of course the lack of a source for these claims makes it weak as evidence, and perhaps you don’t trust the US media on these issues, anyway. In which case, how about Germany’s Der Spiegel? They investigated the Alghamdi “still alive” claims, and reported they were nothing more than mistaken identity. This is the relevant section.

Take the BBC, for example, which did in fact report, on September 23, 2001, that some of the alleged terrorists were alive and healthy and had protested their being named as assassins.

But there is one wrinkle. The BBC journalist responsible for the story only recalls this supposed sensation after having been told the date on which the story aired. "No, we did not have any videotape or photographs of the individuals in question at that time," he says, and tells us that the report was based on articles in Arab newspapers, such as the Arab News, an English-language Saudi newspaper.

The operator at the call center has the number for the Arab News on speed dial. We make a call to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. A few seconds later, Managing Editor John Bradley is on the line. When we tell Bradley our story, he snorts and says: "That's ridiculous! People here stopped talking about that a long time ago."

Bradley tells us that at the time his reporters did not speak directly with the so-called "survivors," but instead combined reports from other Arab papers. These reports, says Bradley, appeared at a time when the only public information about the attackers was a list of names that had been published by the FBI on September 14th. The FBI did not release photographs until four days after the cited reports, on September 27th.

The photographs quickly resolved the nonsense about surviving terrorists. According to Bradley, "all of this is attributable to the chaos that prevailed during the first few days following the attack. What we're dealing with are coincidentally identical names." In Saudi Arabia, says Bradley, the names of two of the allegedly surviving attackers, Said al-Ghamdi and Walid al-Shari, are "as common as John Smith in the United States or Great Britain."

The final explanation is provided by the newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, one of the sources of Arab News, which in turn serves as a source to the BBC. Mohammed Samman is the name of the reporter who interviewed a man named Said al-Ghamdi in Tunis, only to find that al-Ghamdi was quite horrified to discover his name on the FBI list of assassins.

Samman remembers his big story well. "That was a wonderful story," he says. And that's all it was. It had nothing to do with the version made up of Bröckers' and Bülow's combined fantasies.

"The problem," says Samman, "was that after the first FBI list had been published, CNN released a photo of the pilot Said al-Ghamdi that had been obtained from the files of those Saudi pilots who had at some point received official flight training in the United States."

After Samman's story was reported by the news agencies, he was contacted by CNN. "I gave them Ghamdi's telephone number. The CNN people talked to the pilot and apologized profusely. The whole thing was quite obviously a mix-up. The Ghamdi family is one of the largest families in Saudi Arabia, and there are thousands of men named Said al-Ghamdi."

When we ask Samman to take another look at the FBI's list of photographs, he is more than happy to oblige, and tells us: "The Ghamdi on the photo is not the pilot with whom I spoke."
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,265160-2,00.html

A CNN clip confirms that their picture was not of the alleged hijacker (click it to view the video, in XviD AVI format, 1.5 MB):

http://www.911myths.com/HIJACKSUSPECTS.avi</p>

A German 9/11 site confirms this with a better resolution image (source):

http://www.galerie-arbeiterfotografie.de/galerie/kein-krieg/hintergrund/index-rezension-7.html</p>

It seems the pilot al-Ghamdi is a different individual to the alleged hijacker, then, and the “still alive” claim is mostly likely just a case of mistaken identity.

For the second time, here it is in a nice easy sound bite for you:

After Samman's story was reported by the news agencies, he was contacted by CNN. "I gave them Ghamdi's telephone number. The CNN people talked to the pilot and apologized profusely. The whole thing was quite obviously a mix-up. The Ghamdi family is one of the largest families in Saudi Arabia, and there are thousands of men named Said al-Ghamdi."

When we ask Samman to take another look at the FBI's list of photographs, he is more than happy to oblige, and tells us: "The Ghamdi on the photo is not the pilot with whom I spoke."

@Muertos,

He's crazy, man. Like the bad crazy.

Observable reality ceases to be relevant when one is crazy.

For example: you.

The people you claim are alive do not look the same as the FBI's hijackers, they just have the same name you do realise that?

I realize that's your contention, but, of course, the people in question disagree with you. I think most people are able to recognize pictures of themselves as well as their personal information.

Please prove that they look the same.

The fact that these people self-identified suggests that their identities are not in question, these people know who they are, and they recognize pictures of themselves, pictures that have been all over the television and in newspapers and all over the internet practically since day one (1).

Plautus Satire, if they are still alive, why haven't they talked much about it since? Wouldn't they desire the fame that would along with showing the world they are still alive?

Maybe because the hijackers are tied to Bin Laden, who is tied to Bush and Cheney?

Maybe they're all shooting heroin in Pakistan right now?

Least of all truthers apparently, who wont get off their asses and prove their claims.

Why didn't they come out in the beginning?

um...they did?

@KingDavid8,

Here is a good video giving some background:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHjISnLlL3I

Here is my answer:

This is a paper written by Steven Jones/Niels Harrit and a bunch of other conspiracy theorists that somehow got their paper into a Bentham journal. I say "somehow" because no one knows how it got in there. When the editor heard it had been published she quit saying she had no knowledge of the paper and that it was "printed without permission". So then, if the editor had no knowledge of it, was it really peer reviewed and how can we really be sure in the light of these facts? Well the content sucks, so the answer would appear to be no however lets stay on the administrative fail for now...

Now the next thing is that another Bentham journal accepted a FAKE paper, which was created as an exercise to test how good Benthams standards were(2). You have to understand here that they accepted it not published it. Because Bentham is a pay to play journal - not *necessarily* bad - they accepted it for publication and then the authors have to pay to go any further and since it was a fake paper the authors admitted it was a fake. The Bentham heads claimed that they knew it was a fake and accepted it so that they could find out who was involved. The problem with this explanation is that the editor of THAT journal quit as well after this, which would be rather strange if the reason was as entirely innocent as the explanation claims.

The next problem is that Bentham had been held in disrepute for a long time before this, they have been found SPAMMING scientists and offering them all kinds of incentives to publish(3). The bottom line is that Bentham is not a reputable, respected, legitimate journal. Certain respectable people have offered support to it, maybe its infancy, but thats because the idea of "open access" doesn't necessarily mean its a shoddy publication. Its just that if not done right it has the incentive to be so and it seems Bentham has taken the path of the dark side in that regard.

As for the Paper itself much as been said about its poor methods as can be read from a variety of people(4). Truther responses have in my experiences almost always involved hand waving it because they think the article is peer reviewed and so any responses to it should have to go through the same process. I find it interesting that truthers can suddenly cling to the peer review process when it suits them, even though as I said no one knows how their paper was published or what the peer review really consisted of, but the hilarious aspect is that this is the closest truthers have EVER come to any kind of peer review. There have been hundreds of peer reviewed articles in legitimate journals of the collapses and not a single one have been promoting truther claims.

I also discovered recently that the annual growth of newly qualified/credentialed engineers in the US is 17,000(5). Yet, Gage has only been able to pull together (as of writing) 1225 credentialed engineers and architects (including software engineers) from all over the WORLD in just just a decade since 9/11. That's how fringe these guys are.

-- 1 --
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2009/06/bentham-editors-resign.html
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=141353 /> http://screwloosechange.blogspot.com/2009/04/bentham-editor-resigns-over-steven.html</p>

-- 2 --
http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/55759/<br /> http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/jun/18/science-editor-resigns-hoax-article</p>

-- 3 --
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2009/06/hoax-exposes-incompetence-or-worse-at.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2009/09/criticism-of-oa-publisher-bentham.html
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2009/06/bentham-editors-resign.html

-- 4 --
http://undicisettembre.blogspot.com/2009/04/active-thermitic-material-claimed-in.html<br /> http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=4607894&postcount=1694 /> http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=4688621&postcount=228

-- 5 --
http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm

@KingDavid8:

How did it go?