Initiatives

Alongside its research and educational activities, the International Center for 9/11 Justice spearheads all types of initiatives aimed at raising mass public awareness and sparking broad-based demand for justice for the millions of people affected by 9/11. Below is a summary of the Center’s current initiatives.

Geoff Campbell Inquest

In August 2021, the family of British 9/11 victim Geoff Campbell (pictured above) submitted a 2,500-page application to the attorney general for England and Wales seeking a fresh inquest into Geoff’s death in the North Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

The official conclusion of Geoff’s first inquest in 2013 was that he died due to the impact of the airplane allegedly causing the collapse of the North Tower. The Campbell family is challenging that conclusion on two grounds. The first is the wealth of evidence — not considered at the 2013 inquest — pointing to the tower having been destroyed by controlled demolition. The second is the coroner’s failure to conduct any inquiry at all into how the North Tower came down but then stating a cause of the North Tower’s destruction in the official conclusion.

Under the UK Coroner’s Act 1988, a bereaved family has the right to a fresh inquest if there is evidence not considered at the first inquest that could possibly change the original conclusion or if it can be shown that the coroner’s inquiry was insufficient.

Attorney General’s June 2023 Decision

On June 27, 2023, after nearly two years of waiting, the Campbell family received the bitter news that Attorney General Victoria Prentis refused their application for a new inquest.

The family now plans to challenge the attorney general’s “unlawful and irrational” decision before the High Court. But in order to further retain the services of barrister Nick Stanage of Doughty Street Chambers for that purpose, they must first raise the necessary funds from the public.

If the High Court strikes down the initial decision of Attorney General Prentis, it is thought likely that she will grant her authority for the Campbells to apply to that same High Court for a fresh inquest and that the High Court would order the fresh inquest, having previously found the attorney general’s refusal of the family’s application unlawful.

Should that happen, a new inquest would be held in the West London Coroner’s Court. There, the family would pursue the conclusion that Geoff’s death was caused by the controlled demolition of the North Tower.

Such a conclusion would not automatically trigger any criminal legal actions. However, the family hopes that it would show the world the need for further public inquiries and criminal investigations, any and all of which would help establish the full truth surrounding the events of 9/11.

The International Center for 9/11 Justice is helping the Campbell family fundraise for the next stages of their campaign. The Center will also work with the family and Mr. Stanage to prepare the case they will make at the new inquest, should one be ordered.

Watch the Campbell family submit their application for a new inquest in the final scenes of the feature documentary The Unspeakable.

Peace, War and 9/11

In September 2023, the International Center for 9/11 Justice will be releasing a feature documentary called Peace, War and 9/11.

The documentary, now in post-production, is based on an interview with the late Dr. Graeme MacQueen that was filmed in October 2022, six months before his passing in April. A professor of religious studies and peace studies at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, for 30 years prior to his retirement, MacQueen was a distinguished scholar and widely respected leader in the 9/11 truth movement. He is best known for his analysis of eyewitness accounts of the World Trade Center’s destruction and for his highly influential 2013 book The 2001 Anthrax Deception: The Case for a Domestic Conspiracy.

The documentary will present MacQueen’s analysis of 9/11 and the 2001 anthrax attacks in the context of humanity’s struggle — and MacQueen’s life-long mission — to abolish war.

ASCE Ethics Complaint

In 2018, authors Richard Johns and Tony Szamboti filed an ethics complaint with the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) against the editors of the ASCE’s Journal of Engineering Mechanics.

The complaint alleges that the editors wrongfully rejected as “out of scope” Johns and Szamboti’s discussion paper on the destruction of the Twin Towers, which was critiquing a paper that had just been published in the journal and therefore, by definition, could not be “out of scope” for the journal. Moreover, the journal published a separate discussion paper on the same original paper — deeming that discussion to be in scope — while ruling Johns and Szamboti’s discussion paper “out of scope.” Furthermore, one of the editors of the journal was a co-worker and co-author of one of the authors of the original paper — a glaring conflict of interest — while the other editor had been a contractor on the National Institute of Standards and Technology World Trade Center investigation, also a conflict of interest.

The case, still going after almost five years, will be decided on August 10, 2023, at a hearing before the ASCE’s executive committee.

The Center’s founder, James Gourley, drafted the initial ethics complaint submitted in 2018, and the Center’s executive director, Ted Walter, has overseen the case since then and will be representing Johns and Szamboti at the hearing.

Should Johns and Szamboti prevail, it will mean having their discussion paper finally published in the Journal of Engineering Mechanics more than 12 years after it was first submitted.

Johns and Szamboti’s discussion paper refutes the claim made by Jia-Liang Le and Zdeněk Bažant that there was a deceleration when the top section of the North Tower ostensibly impacted the structure below — but that the deceleration was too small to be perceptible on video.

The discussion paper contends that Le and Bažant used incorrect input values in their calculations for the mass of the upper section and the strength of the structure below. When the input values are corrected, Johns and Szamboti argue, Le and Bažant’s analysis actually indicates that the top section would have decelerated significantly had the collapse been a natural, gravity-driven collapse. Although the discussion paper doesn’t spell it out, the fact that there was no observable deceleration is strong evidence that the North Tower was destroyed by controlled demolition.

Since Le and Bažant’s analysis forms the technical foundation of the official account of the Twin Towers’ destruction, the publication of Johns and Szamboti’s discussion paper could serve to erode acceptance of the official account within the engineering mechanics community — and, in time, throughout the broader engineering and scientific communities.

Richard Johns and Ted Walter gave the latest public update on the case in the October 2022 interview below.