New 9/11 suspect

last updated 8 January 2015

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

FBI agents believe that a prisoner at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay was meant to be the “20th hijacker” in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Newsweek reported this week. The man, identified only as Al-Qahtani, tried to enter the U.S. through the Orlando airport in August 2001, but an immigration official turned him away. Security cameras spotted hijacker Mohammed Atta using a telephone at the airport around the time Al-Qahtani was scheduled to arrive. Al-Qahtani, a Saudi Arabian in his mid-20s, was later captured in Afghanistan and transferred to Guantanamo for interrogation. “We can’t prove it at this point,” a law-enforcement official said. “But, certainly, it’s suspicious.”