Hotel Westin Boston - the 9/11 Hotspot

 

On September 12 2001 at noon the police and FBI stormed the Hotel Westin in Boston. There were some 9/11 suspects in the hotel who were then overhelmed. In the photo above you can see the crowd of onlookers in front of the hotel.

What happened inside and who were the suspects?  

The Raid 

 

The New York Times reports: 

In Boston this afternoon, heavily armed law enforcement officers stormed the Westin Hotel in Copley Square and took three people into custody for questioning. Law enforcement officials said they believed the three had used a credit card to secure the room that matched a credit card used by hijackers to reserve seats on the jets that left Logan Airport on Tuesday morning. New York Times

 

Seacoastonline reports that it was a Saudi family:

 Members of a Saudi family detained by investigators following a raid at a Boston hotel in the wake of this week’s terror attacks have complained they were mistreated by officials, according to a newspaper report. Seacoastonline

 

The Boston Globe reports the story of one of the participants - the suspect`s fiancee:

The plan was to meet her sister-in-law and brother-in-law at the elevator bank. She would barely get past her hotel room door. As she stooped to pick up a newspaper, a man in plain-clothes pointed a handgun at her as he grabbed her, dragged her down the hallway, and handcuffed her, barking demands that she silence her screams, according to her lawyer, Jonathan Shapiro....
The fiance had visited the family at the hotel but had left before the Wednesday incident. Boston Globe

 

Let`s summarize: 

A Saudi family became suspicious of using a credit card that they also used for reserving seats for the hijackers of 9/11. The family are the fiancee, her sister-in-law, her brother-in-law and her fiance. The fiance had left the hotel before, the other three were overhelmed by the police at the the elevator.

In the following video you can see one of the suspects(at 1:43, being taken away from the FBI:

This is a snapshot of the suspect from the video:

The Suspects

 

The Boston Globe reports:

 In addition, the Saudi diplomat said three Saudi citizens were briefly detained last week after a high-profile storming of a hotel room at the Copley Place Westin Hotel. He said police went to the hotel after one of the Saudis used a credit card to rent a car at the hotel. The name on the card was Attar, which was similar to the name of Mohamed Atta, the man who authorities believe was the ringleader of the Boston hijackers. Boston Globe

 Shapiro, a local criminal defense attorney, said he suspects they were targeted by law enforcement officials last week because the woman's fiance shares a name nearly identical to Mohamed Atta...Boston Globe

 

As already mentioned before the three Saudis in the hotel was a family(fiance, sister-in-law, brother-in-law) and the fiance left the hotel before, obviously by renting a car from the hotel with the credit card. The name of the family is Attar. 

The three Saudis, who were released after the FBI interviewed them, have retained a lawyer and are well-connected: They are relatives of the Saudi health minister and the Saudi ambassador to the United Nations, according to a Saudi diplomat. Boston Globe

According to the Boston Globe, the Attars are an influential family. I have researched on the Internet and found this:

The journey of Attar United started by the two brothers; Omar and Mohammed Saddik Attar. Link

On the photo below are Omar(left) and Mohammed(right) Attar. The name Mohammed Attar sounds similar to Mohamed Atta.

Saddik & Mohamed Attar Company is one of the first 10 registered companies in the Kingdom, holding commercial registration no. 10. Link 

 The Attar family seems to have been wealthy or influential for a long time.

Nadine Attar, founder and designer, third generation luxury business entrepreneur. Link

 

This is Nadine Attar(right), sister of Omar and Mohammed.
 

Link (5th picture) Omar Attar(middle) is the brother of Nadine and brother of Mohammed(penultimate picture)

 The man whose name attracted officials’ attention, the fiance of one of the women, is a college student from out of state who had checked out of the hotel before Wednesday’s raid. Link  

Mohammed Attar was a student out of state at this time. Was he just visiting his fiancée?

 

The Evidence

Plane tickets for seven people suspected of being the hijackers were purchased with one credit card, information federal investigators deem extremely critical evidence, sources told CNN. The credit card apparently belonged to a material witness picked up in Boston, not one of the hijackers. CNN

This material witness from Boston had to have been one of the Attar family. The matching of the credit card had to be done on the basis of its number and not because of its name. Mohamed Atta(ringleader of terrorists) never purchased seven tickets of the hijackers, so Attar couldn't have become suspicious because of his name, but because of the number of the credit card.

For the ticket purchases of Atta - look at this FBI document.(page 5)

Seven tickets, purchased with one credit card, were reservated on Flight American 11 First Class for Noris/Cooper(see my first article)

It looks like one of the Attars bought the seven First Class tickets for Noris and Cooper on Flight 11 with this credit card.

 

 
A search of the rooms yielded evidence of a link to someone whose name appeared in the passenger lists of the hijacked planes, police sources said. The search also turned up hair dye and other materials useful for creating disguises. It appeared many people had come and gone from the rooms in the past few days. Independent

 

If the Attars had nothing to do with the hijackers, why was there a hint to a passenger on the hijacked plane in their room? What reason would the Attars have to disguise themselves up?

It looks like they were hosting hijackers in their other hotel room

 

 

The fiance had visited the family at the hotel but had left before the Wednesday incident. Boston Globe

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation, hoping to match names of suspects against hotel registries, saw five Arab surnames on the Westin’s manifest that matched the names of people they suspected in the attacks, local media reported. Arab News

Hotel workers said the F.B.I. had faxed them a list of names connected to the credit card account, and one of the names matched that of a man who had rented two rooms on the 16th floor of the hotel. New York Times

The fiancee, her sister-in-law and her brother-in-law had lived in the two hotel rooms. The fiance had only visited them. Which two people(suspects in the attacks) lived in the other hotel room?

If the Attar family, mentioned and pictured above, was actually in the Westin hotel at the time, the man taken away in the video would have to be Omar Attar, according to the fiancée's description. The beard and the turban could be from the disguise materials from their hotel room:

Conclusion:

It looks like the Attars hosted 9/11 hijackers in their hotel room and that they were released again because of good relations to the Saudi government. One of the Attars(name similar to Mohamed Atta) made reservations on the hijacked plane and it looks like this reservations were the 7 seats(Noris/Cooper) in the First Class of Flight American Airlines 11. Five unknown hijackers were coming from Canada(my previous article). If the Attars hosted some of these or other hijackers, they should know who they are.