Had you driven into the parking lot of a certain 7-Eleven in suburban Virginia at about 1 PM on Sept. 11 of this year — which this writer did — you would have seen 11 men standing, sitting or sleeping on the concrete there and on a nearby sidewalk.
This is essentially the same scene you would have encountered there 25 years ago in the weeks leading up to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
This parking lot, as this column has noted before, witnessed a scene that was a prelude to the hijacking of American Airlines Flight 77. That is the plane that Hani Hanjour and four other al Qaeda terrorists hijacked on 9/11 and that Hanjour flew into the Pentagon, killing 184 people.
On Aug. 1, 2001, Hanjour drove into the parking lot of this 7-Eleven. One of the men standing there that day was Luis A. Martinez-Flores, an illegal alien from El Salvador. In December 2001, this man would plead guilty to "identification document fraud."
In making his plea agreement, Martinez-Flores agreed to a "statement of facts" in his case, which he confirmed was "accurate in every respect. ... (H)ad the matter proceeded to trial, the United States would have proved those facts beyond a reasonable doubt."
"At all times material to this case, the defendant was a citizen and national of El Salvador living in the United States unlawfully," said this statement of facts submitted in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
It then explained that in order to obtain a Virginia driver's license or identification card, an applicant needed "one official or business document as proof of Virginia residence." If an applicant for a Virginia ID did not have this documentary proof, he could instead submit a form that required him "to provide and to swear to his name and to his place and length of Virginia residence." In addition, he would also need "the sworn, notarized certification of a Virginia resident" who "swears that he is personally acquainted with the applicant and that the applicant lives at the Virginia address listed on the form."
Hanjour needed to find a "Virginia resident" who would do this for him. So did his fellow terrorist hijacker Khalid al-Mihdhar.
"On or about the evening of August 1, 2001, the defendant was seeking day labor from passersby in a parking lot at a 7-11 store in Falls Church, Virginia," said the statement of facts submitted with the Martinez-Flores plea agreement.
"On that same date, Hanjour and Almihdhar drove a van with out-of-state plates into the same parking lot while the defendant was there," said the statement of facts. "Once in the lot, Hanjour and Almihdhar told the day laborers who approached their van that they needed someone to certify that they were Virginia residents on a DMV form. When the first two laborers who approached Hanjour and Almihdhar refused to help the men, the defendant came forward and agreed to help Hanjour and Almihdhar in return for a cash payment of $100."
"Once the matter was agreed, the defendant got in Hanjour and Almihdhar's van and directed them to the Springfield DMV office in Springfield, Virginia," the statement of facts said. "There, the defendant helped both Hanjour and Almihdhar complete the DL51 form using the address 5319 Leesburg Pike, #8, Falls Church, Virginia. This address did not belong to either Hanjour or Almihdhar, but was rather the address that appeared on the defendant's Virginia identification card. The defendant no longer lived at the address, but had in the past."
"In addition to lending both men his former address," said the statement of facts, "the defendant certified on both DL51 forms that the applicants, Hanjour and Almihdhar, lived at 5319 Leesburg Pike #8, Falls Church, Virginia, when in fact they did not."
"A few moments later, DMV clerks issued both Hanjour and Almihdhar Virginia identification cards," it said.
They then drove Martinez-Flores back to the 7-Eleven. "Almihdhar then obtained $100 in cash from an automated teller machine inside the 7-11 store and gave the money to the defendant," said the statement of facts.
On Aug. 21, 2004, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States published a report on "9/11 and Terrorist Travel." It stated that a Salvadoran (Martinez-Flores) "was convicted of providing false residency information on behalf of Hanjour and Mihdhar after being solicited by the two hijackers at a 7-Eleven in Falls Church, Virginia. For a fee, the Salvadoran falsely certified his old Virginia address as the residence of the hijackers.
"These residency certificates," said the report, "were then used to support their applications for Virginia identification cards issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles on August 1 and 2, 2001, respectively."
And that was not the end of it.
"The Salvadoran's address was also recycled by (Majed) Moqed and Salem al Hazmi to use on their Virginia identification cards issued on August 2, 2001," said the report. "(Ziad) Jarrah followed suit on August 29, using a fictitious residency address and a certification of that address by Hanjour, who again used the address provided to him on August 1, 2001 to acquire his Virginia identification card."
"In all," said the report, "the five hijackers based their Virginia identification documents on the residency information of one bribed Salvadoran."
Hanjour (the pilot), Hazmi, Moqed and Mihdhar were four of the five terrorists who hijacked American Airlines Flight 77, which flew into the Pentagon.
Jarrah was the terrorist pilot of United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing 40 passengers and crew members.
"At Dulles, Khalid al Mihdhar and Majed Moqed provided their fraudulently obtained Virginia identification cards at the ticket counter," said the report.
Five years ago, as the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks approached, this writer drove by that parking lot cited in the report and saw that there were still men there seeking day labor as there had been in 2001 — and there still are today. I wrote about it then.
And I am writing about it now.
You cannot tell simply by driving by people standing, sitting and sleeping in a parking lot whether or not they are legally entitled to work and live in this county.
You also, unfortunately, cannot tell whether there will be a similar crowd of men in that parking lot yet another quarter-century from now.