Exclusive: 9/11 family demands justice after remains never ID'd, trials ongoing

Multiple 9/11 families sued the Saudi government in 2017, led by 9/11 Families United, after circumstantial evidence was revealed from an FBI investigation. The Saudi government denies culpability, pointing to the 9/11 Commission Report, which found no connection between the terrorist attacks and the Saudi government. The report was published in 2004 before the FBI investigation was launched in 2007. Referred to as Operation Encore, it was conducted in secret through 2016. The commission’s report was criticized for being rushed ahead of the 2004 election and for whitewashing aviation security failures, among other government agency failures. 

The Saudi government has fought to block the lawsuit from going forward but U.S. District Judge George Daniels ruled last July it could proceed. 

Tom Resta is demanding answers, accountability and justice for his brother, John Resta, and his pregnant wife, Sylvia San Pio Resta. They were both traders for Carr Futures and killed while at work in the World Trade Center’s north tower. John had turned 40 in July. Sylvia would have turned 27 on Sept. 27. She was seven months pregnant with their first child.  

Tom Resta told The Center Square that for 25 years, U.S. officials have made multiple efforts to “protect the government of Saudi Arabia,” adding that those at the highest levels of “the U.S. government would rather protect the government of Saudi Arabia than the American people.” 

Tom McMillon, who has written two books about the 9/11 terrorist attacks and argues justice hasn’t been met for 9/11 families, has raised questions about the complicity of the Saudi government. “The families have massive circumstantial evidence that two Saudi assets living in Southern California assisted two hijackers on their arrival in 2000. The question is whether it was innocent help for fellow countrymen, as the Saudis say, or something more nefarious. We can only find out if the case proceeds,” he said.

A military criminal trial at Guantanamo Bay has also been delayed. Five 9/11 conspirators still being held at the naval base are being prosecuted, including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who confessed. 

“It’s unconscionable that 9/11 families are still waiting justice after 25 years,” McMillon said. The military trial process has also “failed them. A trial of 9/11 suspects is now scheduled for two years from now, but the families, who have been down this road before, know that more delays are possible. How many more of them will die before seeing justice for their loved ones?”

Former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey, who served with Gov. George Pataki during 9/11, has also been demanding answers. She blames defense attorneys for delaying justice. In a recent op-ed, she argues Mohammed hasn’t been sentenced to death “because America’s own justice system has been turned against us.” 

She’s referring to multiple delays McMillon describes in his book, Justice for the Forgotten Families of 9/11, and in an op-ed he wrote exclusively published by The Center Square. 

“The real torture victims are the 9/11 families, still waiting for justice and closure,” McCaughey argues. Those insisting that “foreign terrorists deserve the same due-process rights and presumption of innocence as any American … are wrong. … These animals don’t deserve the protections of our Constitution. Nor do they deserve the rights of legitimate soldiers under the Geneva Convention; Mohammed and his underlings rejected the rules of war to massacre civilians without warning.”

Another form of torture for 9/11 families is not having remains to bury, they say.

“Our biggest form of advocacy for the last 20 years has been” advocating to find Sylvia’s remains and demanding justice through the trials, Resta told The Center Square. He and his wife have been to Fresh Kills and to Guantanamo, having sat in the courtroom. “Then we come back and try to educate people,” he said. 

Referred to as “the graveyard,” Fresh Kills in Staten Island is the final resting place of World Trade Center debris and potential DNA evidence of those killed there. 

Twenty-five years ago, the newly closed landfill was about to be transformed into a park. On Sept. 11, that changed. On Sept. 12, World Trade Center debris, damaged fire engines and other materials were first transported there.

Roughly 1.4 million tons of material were brought from Ground Zero to Fresh Kills and sorted by forensics. By mid-September, multiple agency staff processed 1,750 tons of material a day. By mid-October they processed 17,500 tons a day, the New York Sanitation Department explains.

“After an exhaustive 10-month recovery effort, remaining fine debris from the WTC was placed in a 48-acre area on top of the hill, with clean layers of soil underneath it and above it,” the DSNY explains. More than 100 DSNY workers died from illnesses contracted from Ground Zero toxins.

“I remember running to the World Trade Center that day,” Resta, who lived in New York City, said. “I remember gray soot on the ground everywhere. I remember watching a police car with a crushed roof being driven from the site by a police officer sitting in the driver's seat,” he said, referring to after the towers fell.

“I remember going to the Emergency Department at New York Downtown Hospital looking for my brother and sister-in-law,” he said. Now NYU Downtown Hospital, it gained international recognition for treating more than 1,000 victims, offering refuge to 450 people and providing care, prescriptions and 350 meals to local seniors – all while not having water, electrical power, telephones/faxes, computers, steam and gas, it says.

Resta says he spent “the next two weeks combing lower Manhattan looking for my brother and sister-in-law.” His brother’s remains were identified on Valentines Day 2002. 

On the 25th anniversary of 9/11, “I'll be reflecting on the fact that my sister-in-law is still among the unidentified,” Resta said. “Over the last 25 years, not one single mayor since former Mayor Rudy Giuliani has offered to have the U.S. government excavate Fresh Kills or even permit the federal government to bring in cadaver dogs to walk Fresh Kills.” 

Of those killed on 9/11, 1,600 victims were identified, 1,100 haven’t yet been identified. Forensic and DNA testing is ongoing. The remains of three people were identified last year, CBS News reported.