A Timeline of my Involvement in 9/11

by Anthony C Heaford
July 2019 (Ongoing edit: 01 July 2021 update) 

April 1997
McCormick Place Exhibition Centre, Chicago

Executives from a London based company called Longulf Trading went on a remarkable shopping spree at the Converting Machinery Manufacturer’s international trade show in Chicago. They ordered about $3-million worth of top-end graphics, printing and packaging equipment for an ill-defined end-customer in Yemen.

I was demonstrating a machine on my employer’s exhibition stand when a few men of south Asian appearance approached and enquired about purchasing one. Within ½-an-hour I'd shown them the practical bits and the salesmen were holding a signed contract for a $100,000 deal with payment to be made upfront and in full. The Longulf executives said the end customer was in Yemen, but they were very vague about the end-customer's name. First they said it was GenPak but then changed it to GemPak, after being told GenPak was an existing multi-national company.

No delivery address or machine specifications were given and the sale was immediately referred to as suspicious  by one salesman. A second salesman responded to that suspicion by saying: 

“Don’t ask any questions, they just paid list price for our top machine."

Although present at the exhibition the company’s managing director (my Father) and his US salesman, Dave Dean, were away from the sales stand for the duration of the Longulf executives visit, watching from a cafe overlooking the exhibition hall. I knew Dean was ex-US special forces, but he said and I believed he was retired. In December 2019 I discovered information linking Dean to famous CIA contractor Billy Waugh. Waugh admits training al Qaeda in 1990s Yemen in his 2004 autobiography “Hunting the Jackal” (See Dec 2019 timeline entry below).

11 June 1997
Logan airport, Boston
 
(the departure point of both flights that hit the WTC on 9/11)

When travelling to Logan airport Boston for a flight to Toronto, from exiting a taxi on a public road to taking my seat on the aircraft I'd not had any security checks, not one. No questions, no metal detector, no hand-luggage x-ray or inspection - nothing. 

At check-in I’d shown a credit-card in exchange for my boarding pass and there was no passport control that I remember. There was a security desk with a metal detector and x-ray machine but they were unmanned and unplugged. I told the air-stewardess at the aircraft door with some concern, stressing that there'd been no security checks within the airport whatsoever. She told me:“that's normal

“Don’t worry, that's normal."

As the aircraft climbed and circled I looked towards the unsecured cockpit door just a few metres away and perceived with horror how easily an aircraft could be hijacked and turned in to a missile.


12 June 1997
Sunworthy Decorative printing factory, Canada

Upon arriving at a customer’s factory in Toronto I refused to start work until I was given firm assurances by the factory manager that my airline hijacking fear from the previous day’s flight would be passed to national security services with a sense of urgency.

I said that the same group who bombed the World Trade Centre in 1993 would attack again, but using a hijacked civilian airliner departing Logan airport. The manager said he did have:

“A personal contact with someone connected to the security services and he'd contact them that same day."

I gave my warning to a Canadian citizen, the first person I spoke to other than the hotel staff because I didn't know who to contact with such a warning and I feared being misunderstood. I gave the factory manager my business card and ask him to identify me as the origin of this warning.


20-26 September 1997
Taiz city and Al Qaidah town, Yemen

hsa yempak contact sheet copy 2

During a six-day business trip to Yemen I unwittingly gave members of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s (KSM) terrorist cell an exact outline of how a 9/11 style attack could be carried out. KSM's terrorist cell’s front company was my employer’s customer, operating from inside the multi-billion dollar Hayel Saeed Anam Group’s Headquarter's compound at PO Box 5302, Taiz, Yemen

KSM's terrorist cell’s front company was the end-customer of Longulf Trading, the agents who’d made the suspicious purchase in Chicago five-months earlier. Longulf Trading is in fact just the London office (Est. 1977) of the Hayel Saeed Anam (HSA) Group. It was only in April 2015 that I discovered these links between YemPak, Longulf and the HSA Group (See April 2015 timeline entry below).

The YemPak employees were mostly Pakistanis and all attended the school (Madrassa) at the compound’s own mosque. They told me the correct company name was YemPak - short for Yemen and Pakistan. During the machine installation the two machine operators I was training asked about travel in the USA and specifically New York. I gave them the same warning I told anyone who would listen: 

“The same group who attacked the World Tade Centre in 1993 would try again but next time using a hijacked civilian airliner as a kamikaze piloted missile."

On the morning of my last full day in Yemen, Thursday 25 September, the Chief of YemPak, Mr Saeed Alrobaidi, casually confirmed my travel warning before arranging three meetings:

·      First a man came to my hotel that evening. Over dinner we discussed my fears and warnings of a 9/11 style attack in detail. This included Logan airport lack of security, the use of box-cutters as weapons, the use of multiple planes to strike multiple targets, landing one plane safely, and likely reactions and responses to such an attack.

·      The next morning the Chief introduced me to a man he called the Engineer . I now know the Engineer was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. There was a group photo with us together but I did not speak to or interact with the Engineer in any other way.

·      After the group photo I was taken to an isolated collection of buildings near a town called Al Qaidah and an unscheduled meeting with about ten-unknown men. That meeting was cut short at my behest and I continued my journey to the airport without further incident. My scheduled flight had been delayed for approximately one hour, with the passengers seated and the aircraft ready to depart. I was whisked through the airport like a VIP and the plane took-off as soon as I sat down.

 27 September 1997
Manchester, England

I raised my concerns about YemPak with the first person I spoke to on my return from Yemen, my works manager. As I handed him my paper work I said:

Me: "there's something very suspicious about the Yemen customer"

He said:  "Don't worry they've already paid in full” 

 I said, "No, really, there was... “ 

 He shooed me out of his office, saying "It doesn't matter"


October / November 1997
Manchester, England

The next time I saw the senior service technician at work I asked where I could report my concerns about US airport security and the potential for a kamikazze hijacking terrorist attack. It was a short conversation, with him advising:

“Oh God, never say anything like that. Your card will be marked by airport security if you do. Don’t worry about it, there’s people whose job it is to look out for stuff like that."


 02 December 1997
Brooklyn, New York

Ignoring the advice I’d been given I decided to repeat my warning once more, during a machine installation in Brooklyn, New York - within sight of the World Trade Centre. I repeated my warning of an imminent 9/11 style attack to the two machine operators I was training. They advised I tell a ‘well connected’ senior partner of the printing business, a Mr Dan Barkochba of the Ultra Flex Packing Corporation.

I again detailed the attack origin, method and target before giving Mr Barkochba my business card and asking him to pass my warning and details to the appropriate security services. Mr Barkochba said: 

“He was well connected with such security services and that he would pass my warning on."

December 1997 was my last visit to the United States of America, and the last warning I gave that included specifically requesting it be passed to the security services along with my contact details.


December 1997
Dubai, United Arab Emirates

A machine installation visit to a new customer in Jebel Ali Free Zone. 

There was nothing unusual about this visit except in hindsight: the customer’s address (PO Box 16797, JAFZ) was very similar to an address used by 9/11 accomplice and Guantanamo detainee Ammar al-Baluchi (PO Box 16958, JAFZ) in August 1998. The addresses are similar enough that they may be in the same building or the same block. (Ref. Ammar al-Baluchi, please see March 2018 entry below)


March 1998
Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Coming out of his retirement whilst on a family holiday to Dubai my former boss, my Father, decided to visit the customer I’d attended at Jebel Ali Free Zone three months earlier. He returned from his holiday and told me that he had seen operator problems and I should visit this customer a second time but at our cost. I protested, saying there was nothing wrong with the operator training I’d given, but my Father treated it very flippantly. He said not to worry and just treat it like a paid holiday.

I attended the Dubai customer’s factory again on what was a very strange (unnecessary) visit marked by what appeared to be the company's enitre management team greeting me and giving me their contact details. In retrospect I believe both visits (December and March) were in connection to my meetings and conversations in Yemen in September 1997. I think members of al Qaeda and the 9/11 plotters with have used the opportunity to observe me, given I had unwittingly told them exactly how to carryout an attack on the World Trade Centre.

March 1998
London, England

Again coming out of his retirement my Father telephoned me at work (on a sales visit to Scotland) to say he wanted me to visit a customer he knew personally in London. He told me the customer, a Mr Jones of Printo Wrappings wanted to buy a £50,000 machine the next day and wanted me to take the contract to him. That alone was very unusual, as was the meeting the next day. Mr. Jones had no interest in the machine he was buying but he did ask me about my work and travels. 

I recall I was coy in my answers and that it ended up being a short meeting, but I had my contract signed and thought little more of this unusual meeting until recently. I now believe Mr Jones was my Father’s MI6 handler or contact, wanting to know more about my conversations and experiences in Yemen a few months earlier.



September 2001
9/11

After watching news reports of the attacks at home in Manchester and in light of my two very specific warnings given in 1997 I expected an imminent visit from US or British security services in the hours and days following the attacks. There was no contact and according to the media, governments and security services they already had it all sown up, so to speak. I dismissed my very vague concerns about my conversations in Yemen as fanciful, and forgot about my concerns.


February 2009
British Counter Terrorism Command

A day or two before swearing an Oath of Allegiance to join the British army, I called the British counter terrorism command and advised them of my vague suspicions of having met Al Qaeda in Yemen in 1997. I sensed my suspicions were dismissed and I've never been contacted back.


April 2015
British Counter Terrorism Command

I identify the Engineer from my September 1997 meeting in Yemen as being Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused 9/11 mastermind held at Guantanamo Bay military prison. I immediately advised British counter terrorism command but they again dismissed my assertions and I've never been contacted back.


March 2017
Sir Graham Brady MP

During a meeting with Sir Graham Brady MP I passed him a detailed dossier containing my evidenced allegations. Sir Graham forwarded my dossier to the entities noted below with links to the correspondence:

 Secret Intelligence Service 
Intelligence and Security committee
US embassy in London


March 2018
US Pentagon & Guantanamo Bay Military Court

A US army officer (employed by the 9/11 commission as an investigator) contacted me via facebook messenger, expressing 'great interest''  in my claims which included meeting Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Yemen, etc.

He proposed sending a team of investigators to Manchester to interview me three months later, in June 2018.


April 2018
Manchester

I declined the US army investigator's invitation to interview after my Pentagon Defense Information Security Officer liasion refused to even discuss my status as a 9/11 trial witness with me.  


July 2019
Guantanamo Bay Military Court

The 36th pre-trial hearing before the start of the five seperate trials of the five men accused of complicity in the murder of 2,976-people in 2001 has concluded. The prosecution attorneys say they are still “in discovery”, i.e. they are still investigating. 

Almost eighteen years since 9/11 and almost eighteen years of perpetual War, and they are still investigating.

Truly, for some of us nothing is written, unless we write it 
© Anthony C Heaford - The Quiet Mancunian