9/11 Personal Privacy

DELIA MORRON

Tel/fax:
E-mail

November 04, 2003

National Commission on Terrorist Attacks

26 Federal Plaza
Suite 13-100
New York, NY 10278

Attention: Mrs. Ellie Hartz and Emily Walker

Dear Mrs. Hartz and Mrs, Walker:

I am hi receipt of a letter from the 9-11 Commission where they introduce you both as the Commission's family
liaisons. Having worked at the WTC, it is obvious that you were familiar with its surroundings. Nevertheless, I am
taking the liberty of sharing my story with you.

My brother Jorge Luis Morron, 38 years old, was killed on 09/11/2001, he was a security guard in the WTC and
worked for Summit Security since 1997. My brother did not have any experience as security guard. As a child, he
suffered from serious developmental problems and many learning disabilities. He was the last one of 14 children.
He came from Colombia in 1993, where he never worked. Once in New York, his only job as a security guard for
less than a year in 1993 was a rundown 6-story building hi Jackson Heights, Queens (I invite you to see it). With
this little experience, he was hired by Summit Security to work in the Financial Center of the World and in
buildings which had been terrorists' target a few years back in 1993. When he got the job, I asked him if the test
had been difficult, and he told me that they put him to watch a video for a couple of hours.

I have always questioned the security standards of the buildings, it may be the reason why these buildings were
chosen. Most of the guards working for Summit made less than $20,000 per annum. What quality people can you
find at this salary level? My brother made between $13,000- $15,000 a year including overtime. My brother spoke
very little English and very slowly because he had speech problems. My brother died leaving behind a mess and I
had to seek legal assistance. During depositions, many of Summit's employees who came to testify were
Hispanics women, most of them didn't speak English and they asked for translators. The question that comes to
mind is, hi case of an emergency, how a person who does not speak English can report and how can he make
himself understand when seconds count? One of the guards was a woman about 65 years old with a very bad
appearance. All of the guards mentioned that at the beginning, when Summit Security got the contract, there was
an incentive bonus of $10.00 for every confiscated ED but lately there were so many that it became uneconomical
for Summit Security and they suspended the bonus. They mentioned that only after the first terrorist attempt in
1993 there were turnstiles installed in the lobby but before that incident, there was even a sale of lottery tickets in
the buildings. Cont... 12
 Page-2-

I'm attaching a newspaper clipping where you can see that the terrorists were coming and going from the buildings.
Was this phase ever investigated? What was the role of Port Authority? Why Summit Security was allowed to hire
Hispanics and blacks from the Caribbean to have them underpaid and putting them to work in such an important
buildings?

This year, on March 3,2003, ABC's World News Tonight aired a tape which was confiscated in Spain and I
watched the report. The next day, March 4, the story was in the local newspapers and on the Internet. Attached
please find the article published by the New York Post and the story as published on the Internet. The video in
reference was taped on August 1997. My brother started working for Summit Security in early 1997. When I saw
the tape, I knew it was my brother Jorge Luis, even though it is very blurry as it was taped from the mezzanine. I
finally obtained the tape from ABC. My question is, why al Qaeda singled out my brother? Probably they had seen
him before or spoken to him and they learned of my brother's disability. Shortly after 9/11, during my search for
my brother, I used to go from hospital to hospital reading the missing persons' lists and I ended up at Pier 94, there
I met a Dominican man, who told me he had worked in maintenance at the WTC, when he learned of my brother's
dead, he cried out "Oh el bobo tambien murio." When I asked him, if he knew of my brother's disability, he tried
to console me by saying "and he was not the only one, there were about four in the same condition working over
there."

This is all I wanted to say. I leave it up to you to ponder that perhaps your lives were put in the hands of
unqualified people just out of the carelessness or greediness of a few ones making it easy for the terrorists to
infiltrate the buildings.

Very truly yours,

^- /£ £*
Delia Monpori
 o
Q.
9/11 link eyed in fiery death
of 'crooked' DMV worker
By TRACY CONNOR
The feds suspect foul play in
the death of a Tennessee state
worker accused of selling bogus
driver's licenses to Middle East-
O)
C ern men from New York who
T3
O) are being investigated for possi-
ble ties to the Sept. 11 attacks.
Katherine Smith, 49, was found
O
Q.
burned beyond recognition in an
Acura Legend after the car ran
O
off a Memphis highway in the
>- middle of the night Saturday, of-
ficials said.
The car was engulfed in flames
— even though it was merely
dented and the gas tank didn't
explode. Experts are looking for
signs of an accelerant.
"The question is: What caused
this car to burn? And why was
this woman inside the car when
it burned?" said FBI spokesman
George Bolds.
Memphis resident Khaled Odtl-
lah, who allegedly hatched the
deal with Smith, collecting
$1,000 for each license.
FBI agents caught the men
holding the fake licenses, and
Smith told them she had sup-
plied fraudulent documents to KATHERINE SMITH
Odtllah and his cohorts at least Busted in license scam.
PHONY LICENSES: Mohammed Fares, Abdelmuhsen Mahmid seven other times, court docu-
Hammad, Sakhera Hammad, Mostafa Said Abou-Shahin and ments said. The five men are in drove back to Memphis from
Khaled Odtllah (from left) are under arrest. AP custody in Tennessee. New York on Sept. 11 — a charge
Smith described Odtllah as a defense lawyer Anthony Helm
Smith's death is particularly along to the FBI in Memphis, friend and said she was buying a disputed, saying he'd visited the
suspicious because just four days which staked out Smith's office car from him — the same 1992 city earlier but was home in
before the crash, the feds busted on Feb. 5 and watched the trans- Acura in which she perished Tennessee by then.
her and five men for the license- action unfold. Investigators said days later while free on bond. Helm said Odtllah did nothing
fraud scheme. a New York man named Sakhera The connection to Sept. 11 illegal and had merely shown the
In late January, an FBI agent in Hammad, 24, drove three other emerged when FBI agents found
a visitor's pass for the World other defendants where the li-
New York got a tip about illegal men — Mohammed Fares, Trade Center — dated Sept. 5 — censing center was.
aliens who planned to drive from Mostafa Said Abou-Shahin and in Hammad's wallet. He claimed As for Smith's death, Helm
the city to Tennessee to get li- Abdelmuhsen Mahmid Hammad to be a plumber who had worked said he's confident the probe will
censes from a crooked examiner. — to Memphis. on the building's sprinkler. show "it was obviously just a
The information was passed There, they hooked up with Also, the FBI said Odtllah tragic coincidence."
 a
-a
Pentagon picks
_*
memorial site
WASHINGTON — Vic-
L_
o tims of the Sept. 11 attack
on the Pentagon will be
remembered outside the
Ol
massive Defense Depart-
ment headquarters by a
grove of trees, 184 lighted
pools and benches en-
graved with the names of
those who died.
Pentagon officials an-
nounced yesterday that it
had chosen the memori-
al's design from among
more than 1,100 entries in
a competition.
The two-acre memorial
will be 165 feet from the
Pentagon, near the spot
where terrorists crashed a
hijacked jetliner into the
building. The crash killed
125 people in the building
and 64 on the plane. The
five al Qaeda hijackers are
not among the 184 people
honored by the memorial.
Officials said they hope
to have the memorial
complete by Sept. 11 next
year. The designers are
Julie Beckman, 30, and
Keith Kaseman, 31, of New
York City. AP
Hill's war advice:
Let's wait and see
WATERVLIET — Sen.
Hillary Rodham Clinton
yesterday said she could
support war with Iraq —
just not yet.
After touring an upstate
arsenal, Clinton said before
America goes to war, the
Bush administration should
continue efforts to build an
international coalition and
see if inspections work.
But the former first lady
wouldn't say just how long
America should delay mili-
tary action in favor of win-
ning more support.
Kenneth Loveft
WTC vid
reveals
planning
of attack
1
By AJNDY SOLTIS
Eerie surveillance videos of
the World Trade Center —
made by an al Qaeda planning
team in 199,7 — show an omi-
nous blueprint for the Sept. 11 at-
tacks.
Excerpts from the 29-minute
tape, aired yesterday for the first
time on ABC's "World News
Tonight," show the trade center
from various angles, outside and
in, day and night.
Two men, speaking Arabic, de-
scribe what they see as they take
elevators from the lobby to the
HOth-floor observation deck. TARGET TAPES: Suspected al Qaeda associate Ghasoub al Abrash Ghalyoun is seen peering down
Their camera focuses on the at the Brooklyn Bridge from high up in the World Trade Center in a 1997 videotape. ABC News
top floors of the trade center's taken by Ghasoub al Abrash of Liberty, Golden Gate Bridge,
north tower and then up the
Hudson River — the path taken
Ghalyoun, a suspected leader of the Sears Tower in Chicago and
the al Qaeda-linked Muslim Disneyland and Universal Stu-
by the hijacked jets that de-
stroyed the building four years
Brotherhood, they said. dios in Southern California.
Ghalyoun even appears on the The judge described the sub-
later. jects as "installations and monu-
The tape was one of 15 seized tape — viewing the Brooklyn
Bridge from high in the trade ments that are considered sym-
by Spanish cops in Madrid last bols of the life and culture" of
year. center. He is also seen walking
through security checkpoints America — adding that they
"If you wanted to use one "have been or are terrorist ob-
word, I would say they were around Wall Street and standing
next to a statue in a plaza out- jectives of al Qaeda."
'target' tapes," said Gustavo de Other tapes were described as
Aristegui, former chief of staff side the trade center.
extremely violent footage of Is-
of the Spanish national police. The existence of the tape be- lamic fighters in training camps
Authorities said the tapes be- came known last July, when a and in action in Chechnya, Span-
longed to an al Qaeda cell that Spanish judge remanded Ghal- ish authorities said.
was in contact with Osama bin youn and three other arrested The tapes were seized in the
Laden's top aides and helped fi- suspects. Madrid home of Ghalyoun, a Sy-
nance Mohamed Atta, the Sept. Judge Baltasar Gazon said rian native who holds Spanish
11 hijack ringleader. other tapes seized by investiga- citizenship and is now free on AL ABRASH GHALYOUN
The tape aired yesterday was tors include videos of the Statue bail. Tape showed 9/11 flight path.
Video is purportedly September 11
scouting tape
Wednesday. March 5, 2003 Posted: 3:33 PM EST (2033 GMT)

NEW YORK (CNN) - Home videos obtained by Spanish police may

reveal target scouting by al Qaeda operatives at the World Trade
Center years in advance of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
A videotape recorded in August 1997^ with extensive footage inside the 110-story twin ;
towers, is among a cache of tapes Spanish police confiscated from a suspected i
terrorist's apartment last year. !

A Spanish court recently turned over one tape to attorneys representing American |
families who lost relatives in the September 11 attacks and are suing purported i
financiers of terrorism in p.S. Distript Court In Washington. •

Plaintiffs' attorneys provided a copy of the tape to CNN. '.

"From looking at the tapes, and from the translations that have occurred, and from the
findings of the Spanish court, we can determine that this was no mere tourist trip," said
Jack Cordray, an attorney for the, families.
The FBI also has a copy of the tape, and federal law enforcement officials said it is
possible that it is an al Qaeda scouting tape.

The tape focuses on the World Trade Center and Empire State Building but also
includes an excursion into Manhattan's financial district in which the tape's owner turns
to the camera and says in Arabic, "I will knock them all down," according to two
translators who reviewed the 88-minute tape for CNN.
"If s the first time I've heard about these words said on the tape," said a Spanish
attorney for the tape's owner, Ghasoub al Abrash Ghalyoun. "Investigative officials
here never asked him questions about this phrase, at least not in front of me."
About 30 minutes of the tape contains video of the skyscrapers, structures and
landmarks. It also features a conversation during a drive around Manhattan,
presumably between the driver of the vehicle and the man shooting the video.
A reference to Allah is heard as the video captures a nighttime driving shot of the twin
towers and the Empire State Building.
Later, from the top of the Empire State Building, the camera pans up to focus on a -
plane flying over Midtown Manhattan.
Most of the off-camera voices heard in the video at the trade center are routine
descriptions of the lobby - including elevators and a security guard - and landmarks
seen from the observation deck, such as the Statue of Liberty and Brooklyn Bridge./'
This is the top of the skyscraper," the cameraman says when zooming in on the
broadcast antenna that topped the north tower.
The camera pans from the sidewalk up to the upper north tower floors, where the first
hijacked plane struck September 11. It then moves toward the Hudson River, the path
the terrorist pilots took as they flew the jetliners toward the towers.

Ghasoub is charged in Spain with belonging to a terrorist organization. His arrest in

April 2002 was part of a series of arrests of 35 alleged Islamic militants by Spanish
authorities following the September 11 attacks.
Spain was a meeting place for some of the hijackers who crashed planes into the twin
towers, Pentagon and a field in rural Pennsylvania. More than 3,000 people died in the
attacks.