9/11 panel describes how attackers got money

VISA

August 22, 2004|From Phil Hirschkorn CNN
Thomas Kean, left, and Lee Hamilton presided over the 9/11 commission.

The 9/11 commission has released new details about how 19 hijackers and suspected conspirators in the attacks of September 11, 2001, were financed.

The two new reports -- released Saturday shortly before the commission closed -- also revealed visa and immigration violations among the suspected hijackers.

The commission released pictures of hijackers' visas -- including the charred remains of Ziad Jarrah's visa, plucked from the wreckage of United Flight 93 near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Eight other alleged 9/11 conspirators applied for visas, and three of them succeeded, the reports said. Alleged plot mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed secured a visa in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in July 2001 under an alias, according to the reports.

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The other two visas obtained were for Mushabib al-Hamlan, who ultimately did not participate, and Mohamed al-Kahtani, who was refused entry into the United States by an alert customs officer, the reports said.

Mohammed was captured in March 2003 and is being held at an unknown location. Al-Kahtani is being held at the U.S. detainee facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Al-Hamlan's whereabouts are not publicly known.

The independent National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States released its so-called "final report" on July 22 in a 570-page book.

Congress established the bipartisan panel to investigate events before, during and immediately after the attacks.

The first of the new reports -- referred to as monographs -- deals with financing. It concluded -- as in previous reports -- that preparations for the attacks cost somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000 -- of which about $300,000 was spent in the United States. The costs do not include expenses for terrorist camp training, the report said.

Al Qaeda, which spent at estimated $30 million a year according to the CIA, was funded primarily by donors and corrupt charities, not Osama bin Laden's personal wealth or bin Laden-owned business fronts, the report says.

Bin Laden received $1 million a year from his family and was cut off in 1994. The origin of 9/11 funds is unknown but no money for the attacks was raised in the United States. The hijackers did not self-finance or have jobs.

The monograph reveals in detail how the hijackers received money from wire transfers, cash and traveler's checks, and credit or debit cards for overseas bank accounts. The report says most of the funds were sent by Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, a nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

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