Forensic investigators have recovered the charred remains of most of the 9/11 hijackers - to honour a pledge that they would never be buried with the victims. The £30million CSI-style probe has taken seven years. Flesh or bone from 13 of the 19 Al Qaeda terrorists who flew passenger jets into the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington have now been identified. In the most intense crime scene investigation in history, scientists sifted through a mountain of concrete dust, buckled iron and shattered glass to find what was left of the terrorists. The final tally was 24lb of burnt flesh and shattered bone.A combination of dedicated FBI detective work and the brilliant skills of forensic scientists eventually put names to the fragments by matching them with DNA traces discovered at the terrorists’ hideouts. Somewhere deep in an FBI complex in Virginia, a locked steel freezer carries all that is left of nine of the hijackers who carried out the attack on the Pentagon and brought down Flight 93 in Pennsylvannia. Another secret building in New York holds the charred bone fragments of four of the fanatics who attacked the World Trade Center.The glass containers are under 24-hour armed guard as Amer–ica still tries to come to terms with the enormity of the 2001 atrocities and the ramifications of keeping hold of the body parts of killers hailed across the Middle East as martyrs. The FBI and coroner’s office staff are holding on to the remains while the 9/11 inquiry stays open, but eventually it may be left to the President-elect Barack Obama to decide their fate. (Source: Daily Express)Sunday 11 January 2009
Remains of 9/11 Killers Found?
Forensic investigators have recovered the charred remains of most of the 9/11 hijackers - to honour a pledge that they would never be buried with the victims. The £30million CSI-style probe has taken seven years. Flesh or bone from 13 of the 19 Al Qaeda terrorists who flew passenger jets into the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington have now been identified. In the most intense crime scene investigation in history, scientists sifted through a mountain of concrete dust, buckled iron and shattered glass to find what was left of the terrorists. The final tally was 24lb of burnt flesh and shattered bone.A combination of dedicated FBI detective work and the brilliant skills of forensic scientists eventually put names to the fragments by matching them with DNA traces discovered at the terrorists’ hideouts. Somewhere deep in an FBI complex in Virginia, a locked steel freezer carries all that is left of nine of the hijackers who carried out the attack on the Pentagon and brought down Flight 93 in Pennsylvannia. Another secret building in New York holds the charred bone fragments of four of the fanatics who attacked the World Trade Center.The glass containers are under 24-hour armed guard as Amer–ica still tries to come to terms with the enormity of the 2001 atrocities and the ramifications of keeping hold of the body parts of killers hailed across the Middle East as martyrs. The FBI and coroner’s office staff are holding on to the remains while the 9/11 inquiry stays open, but eventually it may be left to the President-elect Barack Obama to decide their fate. (Source: Daily Express)