Heavily censored FBI documents released to BrowardBulldog.org on Monday and reported by the Miami Herald contain a slew of previously unknown and curious information about the weeks before 9/11.
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Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), information about Saudi citizens who resided in Sarasota, Florida and who left without explanation two weeks before the 9/11 terrorist attacks have emerged.
The Saudis left behind a luxury home, clothing, jewelry and new cars all of a sudden in August 2001.
The once-secret investigation focuses on Abdulaziz al-Hijji, his wife, Anoud, and her father, Esam Ghazzawi, an advisor to a Saudi prince.
The report notes an FBI letter accompanying the documents cited national security and other reasons to justify why certain information was withheld, but didn’t say why the documents were not previously acknowledged to exist.
Here’s one account of an event that took place on Halloween 2001:
Deputies were called after a man with a Tunisian passport was observed disposing of items in a dumpster behind a storage facility he had rented in Bradenton.
The man’s name is blanked out, but the report says authorities who searched the dumpster found “a self-printed manual on terrorism and Jihad, a map of the inside of an unnamed airport, a rudimentary last will and testament, a weight to fuel ratio calculation for a Cessna 172 aircraft, flight training information from the Flight Training Center in Venice [Fla.] and printed maps of Publix shopping centers in Tampa Bay.”
The Flight Training Center is where 9/11 hijack pilot Ziad Jarrah, who was at the controls of United Airlines Flight 93 when it crashed in Shanksville, Pa, took flying lessons.
The three remaining paragraphs were completely censored, which was “specifically authorized under criteria established by [presidential] executive order to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy.”
“This release suggests that the FBI has covered up information that is vitally important to public safety,” Miami attorney Thomas Julin, who represents BrowardBulldog.org. “It’s startling that after initially denying they had any documents they continue to find new documents as the weeks and months roll by. Each new batch suggests there are many, many more documents.”
“There needs to be a full-scale explanation of what’s going on here,” he added.
Here’s another account of an FBI document from Feb. 2, 2012:
On that day, FBI offices in Tampa and Charlotte, North Carolina, received information from Washington stamped “secret” stating that a “person of interest” in the FBI’s massive 9/11 investigation had returned to the United States.
The person, whose name is redacted, was reported to be “traveling to Texas and LA for business/tourism.” The person apparently told authorities upon entering the country that he could be reached in Charlotte. He provided a telephone number “associated with furniture manufacturers in North Carolina,” the report states.
Details about that were blanked out. But the report also states, “Tampa is notified that a person of interest to Tampa regarding the PENTTBOMB investigation has a valid visa for re-entry into the U.S.” PENTTBOMB is the FBI’s code name for its 9/11 investigation.
In all, the FBI released 11 pages Monday. They contain statements reiterating that the al-Hijjis had departed the United States in haste shortly before 9/11 and that “further investigation” had “revealed many connections” between them and persons associated with “attacks on 9/11/2001.”
The Miami Herald notes that these statements “flatly contradict the FBI’s public statements that agents found no connection between the al-Hijjis and the 9/11 plot,” but “dovetail with the account of a counterintelligence source who has said investigators in 2001 found evidence — phone records and photographs of license plates snapped at the entrance to the al-Hijjis’ Sarasota-area neighborhood — that showed Mohamed Atta, other hijackers.”
Then there is this third sensational excerpt from the documents:
[The Tampa FBI office] determined that [blank] is an antagonist of the United States of America. [Blank] resides in Jerusalem. [Blank] allegedly has held regular and recurring meetings at his residence to denounce and criticize the United States of America and its policies. [Blank] is allegedly an international businessman with great wealth.
In November 2001, [blank] visited the United States for the first time. He traveled to Sarasota, Florida, opened a bank account and made initial queries into the purchase of property in south central Florida. [Blank] intends to establish a Muslim compound in Central Florida. [Blank] revealed that [blank] is fearful of [blank] and fears that [blank] intends to begin offensive operations against the United States if he is able to purchase property and establish a Muslim compound in Central Florida.
The censored parts of the documents are to be kept secret until 2039.