After 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001: Hijacker’s Passport Found Near WTC

Satam Al Suqami’s remarkably undamaged passport, marked and wrapped in plastic. It was shown as evidence in the 2006 Zacarias Moussaoui trial. [Source: FBI]It is reported that the passport of hijacker Satam Al Suqami has been found a few blocks from the World Trade Center. [ABC News, 9/12/2001; Associated Press, 9/16/2001; ABC News, 9/16/2001] Barry Mawn, the director of the FBI’s New York office, says police and FBI found it during a “grid search” of the area. [CNN, 9/18/2001] However a senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission later claims it was actually discovered by a passerby and given to an NYPD detective, “shortly before the World Trade Center towers collapsed.” [9/11 Commission, 1/26/2004] The Guardian says, “The idea that Mohamed Atta’s passport had escaped from that inferno unsinged [tests] the credulity of the staunchest supporter of the FBI’s crackdown on terrorism.” [Guardian, 3/19/2002] (Note that, as in this Guardian account, the passport is frequently mistakenly referred to as Atta’s passport.)