Times, UK

Hijackers' bodies set Bush grisly question

FROM DAMIAN WHITWORTH IN WASHINGTON

IN carefully numbered plastic bags in refrigerated trucks parked at the mortuary at Dover Air Force base in Delaware sit human remains that have presented the Bush Adminstration with an ethical problem.

US investigators told The Times that they had certainly recovered, if not yet identified, the bodies of several of the suicide hijackers, prompting a debate over how to dispose of what is left of the most hated men in America.

The excavation of the Pentagon and Pennsylvania crash sites was completed this week after forensics experts concluded that they had removed all body parts from both scenes.

Officials said that although many of the remains were fragmented and charred, DNA tests would eventually identify all of the victims. The bodies of the men who killed them would also be identified, if only by a process of elimination.

The Administration is worried that if it gives the bodies to their families to bury there will be a public outcry. There are also concerns that other Islamic extremists would treat their graves as shrines.

The remains from the aircraft that crashed into the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania are being held at the mortuary at Dover. Some have already been identified by traditional methods, such as fingerprints, dental records and other distinguishing features.

Already hundreds of samples have been taken in test tubes to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) laboratories in Rockville, Maryland, for DNA testing. The institute identified all 230 victims of TWA Flight 800, after that aircraft exploded and plunged into Long Island Sound in 1996.

Paul Sledzik, the forensic anthropologist who led the search for the 44 passengers, crew and hijackers on board Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania, said that he was confident “we are likely to get 44 unique DNA profiles”. Scientists will use genetic material taken from the victims’ possessions, including razors and toothbrushes, or from their relatives, to make DNA matches that reveal the identities of the victims.

The FBI is believed to be extremely anxious to identify the bodies of the hijackers, as there are still doubts about some of their identities and there could be trials of other conspirators.

If relatives are persuaded to co-operate in providing reference samples, or the hijackers have left behind genetic material on possessions, the FBI believes that they could be identified. Even if the identities are not clarified, the authorities will be left with the remains of nine hijackers from the two sites.

There is a precedent for handing over the remains of even the most notorious figures in American life. The body of Gamil el-Batouty, the co-pilot of EgyptAir Flight 990, who apparently committed suicide by crashing the aircraft into the Atlantic in 1999, was quietly returned to his family in Egypt last year for a private burial.

Even the nation’s most loathed murderers are allowed burial after execution.

Chris Kelly of the AFIP indicated that the authorities were reluctant to consider releasing the hijackers’ bodies. “We are not quite sure what will happen to them,” he said, but “we doubt very much we are going to be making an effort to reach family members over there.”

A source close to the investigation said: “There is this idea that if America is a country of justice it should not be seen to stop the mothers of even the worst monsters from burying their sons, but people would be outraged if these men were handed over for a Muslim burial.”

The Justice Department declined to return calls requesting comment on what it planned to do with the hijackers’ bodies. In the short term the remains are likely to be held for several years, in case of legal proceedings.

Mohammed Atta, the suspected ringleader of the hijackers who died in the first plane to hit the World Trade Centre, laid out strict instructions for his funeral in his will, revealed this week.

The likelihood of any sort of burial of his body is, however, vastly diminished by the difficulties of retrieving remains at the World Trade Centre. Of the more than 5,000 who died there, fewer than 400 bodies have been identified.

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2001