July 3, 2001: 9/11 Hijacker Possibly Obtains Florida ID Card; 9/11 Commission Will Dispute This

According to the St. Petersburg Times, 9/11 hijacker Satam Al Suqami obtains a Florida ID card on this day. [St. Petersburg Times, 9/16/2001] However, the 9/11 Commission will make no mention of this card and will say that Al Suqami was the sole hijacker not to obtain US identification. Al Suqami’s passport will be found on the day of 9/11 near the World Trade Center, before it collapses (see After 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). The Commission will give this lack of US identification as the reason Al Suqami took his passport on his final flight, enabling it to be found. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 8, 33 ] The article in the St. Petersburg Times saying that Al Suqami gets the ID card on this day will contain some errors regarding some of the other hijackers. For example, it will evidently confuse hijacker Abdulaziz Alomari with a man with a similar name who also lived in Florida. However, even though it will be published only five days after 9/11, the article will contain details which indicate the information it contains about Al Suqami may well be correct:
It gives Al Suqami’s middle initials as “MA,” and this is correct: his middle names were Mohamed al-Rahman;
It says his previous driver’s license was issued in Saudi Arabia and he is a Saudi;
It says the ID card was issued around the same time several of the other Florida-based hijackers obtained similar cards. [St. Petersburg Times, 9/16/2001; US District for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006] For example, Wail Alshehri obtained a Florida ID card on the same day, and two days previously Hamza Alghamdi obtained a Florida driver’s license and Mohand Alshehri obtained a Florida ID card (see April 12-September 7, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 27 ]