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Emergence of police state |
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STATISTICS |
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 Thursday, 20 June 2013 |
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Remains Of 9 Sept. 11 Hijackers Held |
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Written by CBS, August 17, 2002
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25 July 2007 18:11 |
Remains Of 9 Sept. 11 Hijackers Held
WASHINGTON, August 17, 2002
(CBS) Among the human remains painstakingly sorted from the Pentagon
and Pennsylvania crash sites of Sept. 11 are those of nine of the
hijackers.
The FBI has held them for months, and no one seems to know what should
be done with them. It's a politically and emotionally charged question
for the government, which eventually must decide how to dispose of some
of the most despised men in American history.
?I think in Islam, you're supposed to be buried whole, so I would take
them and scatter them all over the place,? said Donn Marshall, whose
wife, Shelley, died at the Pentagon. ?They don't deserve any kind of
religious courtesies.?
In New York, where the monumental task of identifying the remains of
2,823 victims believed to be dead continues, no remains have been
linked to the 10 hijackers who crashed two airliners into the World
Trade Center. About half the victims' families still are waiting for
their loved ones to be identified, though it's likely many never will
be because so much of the site was incinerated.
In contrast, the remains of all 40 victims in the Pennsylvania crash
and all but five of the 184 victims at the Pentagon site were
identified months ago.
A group memorial service is planned for Arlington National Cemetery on
Sept. 12, when all the remains from the Pentagon that could not be
matched with a particular victim will be buried, said Maj. Sandy
Troeber, a spokeswoman.
Little attention has been paid to the terrorists' remains found mingled with those of the Pennsylvania and Pentagon victims.
?It's a unique situation,? said Dr. Jerry Spencer, a former chief
medical examiner for the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, who
worked 30 years as a Navy forensic pathologist. ?The terrorists are
usually not in our possession in the United States like this. The other
issue is, will the families want them back?"
Four sets of remains in Pennsylvania and five at the Pentagon were
grouped together as the hijackers - but not identified by name -
through a process of elimination.
Families of the airplanes' passengers and crews and those who died
within the Pentagon provided DNA samples, typically on toothbrushes or
hairbrushes, to aid with identification. The remains that didn't match
any of the samples were ruled to be the terrorists, said Chris Kelly,
spokesman for the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, which did the
DNA work. The nine sets of remains matched the number of hijackers
believed to be on the two planes.
Without reference samples from the hijackers' personal effects or from
their immediate families to compare with the recovered DNA, the remains
could not be matched to individuals.
With the one-year anniversary approaching, State Department officials
say they have received no requests for the remains. The department
would be responsible for handling such a request from any government
seeking the return of a citizen's body.
Officials have said that all but one of the nine hijackers recovered had connections to Saudi Arabia. The other was Lebanese.
Officials at the Saudi Embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.
In more typical cases, foreign families also could contact local
authorities. But the hijackers' remains are under the control of the
FBI.
?To the best of my knowledge, there haven't been any friends or family
members to try to claim the remains of these people,? said Jeff
Killeen, spokesman for the FBI field office in Pittsburgh. ?They are in
the custody of the FBI in Washington. They have not been released.?
In cases where badly damaged bodies cannot be identified, or when no
one steps forward to claim a body, state or local laws usually dictate
what will be done with them.
?If it's a mass disaster, and they can't identify the remains, they may
put all of them in a mass grave or they may be cremated,? said Michael
Bell, vice president of the National Association of Medical Examiners
and the deputy chief examiner for Broward County, Fla.
Authorities usually retain only small DNA samples, photographs or other
pertinent information that might lead to identification later or become
evidence in a criminal case.
The remains linked to terrorists were taken by the FBI in February, she said.
James Starrs, a professor of forensic science and law at George
Washington University, said there should be public oversight of what
the government does with human remains, whether they are criminals or
victims.
Policies must take into account that there are cases where relatives
don't seek repatriation of remains, including many examples of
Americans killed on overseas battlefields, noted Starrs, who is known
for his forensic work in historical cases, such as the outlaw Jesse
James and the mystery of the Boston Strangler.
?Good persons or bad persons, you can't assume that the relatives are
going to come to the fore and try to reclaim their remains,? Starr said.
The Sept. 12 ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery will hold special
significance for families of five people whose remains have never been
identified, Col. Jody Draves, a spokeswoman for the Military District
of Washington, which oversees the cemetery, said Friday.
The service will include burial of the cremated ashes of all remains
not linked to a particular victim, as well as some remains which were
identified that family members asked to be included.
?The intent is not as a memorial service but as a group burial for victims not identified,? Draves said.
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