International Hearings on 9/11 Begins September 2011 in Toronto

TORONTO, Aug. 8, 2011 PRNewswire – A decade after the events of September 11, 2001, which resulted in the immediate deaths of nearly 3,000 people on American soil, countless victims from toxic dust, and hundreds of thousands of deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq, international hearings on this pivotal event will begin in Toronto in September.

The events of September 11 provided a pretext for a War on Terror that has led to military invasions and occupations, and attacks upon civil and human rights throughout the world. The credibility of the official investigation into the events of September 11, 2001, carried out by the U.S. Government between 2003 and 2005, has been questioned by millions of citizens in the United States and abroad, including victim family members, expert witnesses and international legal experts.

To date, open and transparent judicial hearings to question the official evidence provided by the U.S. Government have never taken place in the United States or abroad. Similarly, no perpetrators of the events of September 11 have ever been brought to justice on American soil.

A group of international citizens has therefore undertaken to privately fund and cause these independent hearings to take place. Because of the global ramifications of the events of 9/11, the initiators of this inquest have opted to select an international location outside of the United States for these hearings to proceed. The city of Toronto, Canada was chosen as an ideal “international” location because of its proximity to New York, Washington and Shanksville (the crime scenes).

Sponsored by the International Center for 9/11 Studies, the first four days of these hearings will take place at Toronto’s Ryerson University between September 8 and 11, 2011. During these proceedings, which will be broadcasted live via the Internet, various expert witnesses will present evidence into the case.

Private funding to carry out these initial hearings is being provided by citizens from around the world. Limited seating to attend the hearings is also available. The Toronto Hearings will be moderated by Dr. Michael Keefer (Canada) and Dr. Matthew Witt (United States), and the final report will be edited by American attorney James Gourley.

The Official website Toronto Hearings

Panelists

Four distinguished panelists will hear the evidence presented at the Toronto Hearings. The panelists will help in creating the final report that will include their conclusions.

The final report will be edited by Attorney James Gourley, the Director of the International Center for 9/11 Studies.

Ferdinando Imposimato is the Honorary President of the Supreme Court of Italy. As a former Senior Investigative Judge in Italy, he presided over several terrorism-related cases, including the kidnapping and ultimate assassination of President Aldo Moro, the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II, and other political assassinations and kidnapping cases and several cases against the Mafia. He is a former Senator who served on the Anti-Mafia Commission in three administrations and a former legal consultant to the United Nations regarding institution of laws to control drug trafficking.

Herbert Jenkins is a Professor Emeritus of Psychology at McMaster University. Educated at Oberlin College and Harvard University, he has held positions at The Lincoln Laboratories in Massachusetts, at MIT, and the Bell Telephone Laboratories before coming to McMaster in 1963. He received an honorary degree from McMaster in 2009 for his contributions to the psychology of learning and judgement, and for his leadership in inquiry-based, interdisciplinary, socially responsible undergraduate education. He helped create McMaster’s distinguished interdisciplinary Arts and Science Program and its Engineering and Society Program, and he served as Director of both. This approach to undergraduate education has been widely influential in other universities in Canada.

Richard B. Lee is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of Toronto. Internationally recognized for his ethnographic studies, he has held academic appointments at Harvard, Rutgers and Columbia University. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Lee has served as President of the Canadian Anthropology Society and holds honorary doctorates from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the University of Guelph. American Scientist holds one of Dr. Lee’s contributions as amongst the hundred greatest scientific works of the 20th century.

David Johnson is a Professor Emeritus of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Tennessee. He is a former Professor and Chair of the Planning Departments at Syracuse University and Ball State University. A Fellow of the  American Institute of Certified Planners, Dr. Johnson has served as a planner on the staffs of the Washington National Capital Planning Commission and the Regional Plan Association of New York. As a veteran, he served with the US Army Corps of Engineers. Dr. Johnson is also Past-President of the Fulbright Association of the United States and helped establish the Fulbright Prize, awarded to Nelson Mandela and Jimmy Carter, among others. He received BA and Master degrees in architecture and planning from Yale University and a PhD in regional planning from Cornell University.
Witnesses

Evidence will be presented to a panel by the following expert witnesses who have confirmed their attendance. Other witnesses may attend and the list below will be updated accordingly.

Mike Gravel is a former U. S. Senator and was a 2008 Presidential Candidate. He coauthored and sponsored the act that created the Alaska State Commission for Human Rights. Senator Gravel served on a number of important committees such as the Joint Committee on Congressional Operations, the Special Committee to Study Secret and Confidential Government Documents, and the United States Congress Joint Committee on Atomic Energy. Recently, he has campaigned for a citizens commission to investigate the events of September 11, 2001.

Cynthia McKinney is a former United States Congresswoman and a member of the Green Party since 2007. As a member of the Democratic Party, she served six terms as a member of the United States House of Representatives. In 2008, the Green Party nominated McKinney for President of the United States. She is the first African-American woman to have represented Georgia in the House. She is among several prominent Americans and 9/11 victims who have called for a new investigation into the events of 9/11.

Lance DeHaven-Smith is a Professor in the Reubin O’D. Askew School of Public Administration and Policy at Florida State University. A former President of the Florida Political Science Association, he is the author, coauthor, or editor of 15 books on topics ranging from religion and political philosophy to Florida government and politics.   Dr. deHaven-Smith’s articles on State Crimes Against Democracy have set the stage for widespread study  in this important new field.

Peter Dale Scott : Born a Canadian, Peter Dale Scott is a former English professor at the University of California, Berkeley, a former diplomat and a poet.   He is known for his anti-war stance and his criticism of U.S. foreign policy dating back to the Vietnam War.   He spent four years with the Canadian diplomatic service. He retired from the UC Berkeley faculty in 1994.   He is the author of numerous books, and his books on deep politics, including  ”The Road to 9/11,” have been highly influential  among those  investigating the events of September 11, 2001.

David Ray Griffin is an American retired professor of philosophy of religion and theology. Along with John B. Cobb, Jr., he founded the Center for Process Studies in 1973, a research center of Claremont School of Theology which seeks to promote the common good by means of the relational approach found in process thought.   More recently, Griffin has published a number of books on the subject of the September 11 attacks.   Dr. Griffin’s books and presentations have been among the most important contributions to the 9/11 truth movement.  Many people have begun seeking the truth about 9/11 due to his work.

Michel Chossudovsky is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Ottawa. He is Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He has acted as an economic adviser to governments of developing countries and has worked as a consultant for international organizations including the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean,  and the World Health Organization. He has written books that highlight the historical relationship between the US government and Al Qaeda.

Paul Zarembka is Professor of Economics at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He spent two years as a senior research officer for the International Labor Organization in Geneva, Switzerland.   Since 1977, Zarembka has been general editor of the hardback series Research in Political Economy, publishing work typically from a marxist perspective.   He has held a Fulbright Teaching Award to the Academy of Economics, Poznan, Poland.   Zarembka was editor of Frontiers in Econometrics (1974) that included a chapter that became the principal citation for Daniel McFadden’s Nobel Prize in Economics.   He is editor of The Hidden History of 9-11 (first edition by Elsevier Press; 2008 expanded edition by Seven Stories Press).

Jonathan Cole is a Professional Engineer licensed in New Hampshire and Florida, with 28 years experience.   For more than 10 years he has been the head of a mid-sized engineering firm with some 25 employees. In addition to designing large-scale engineering projects, he has performed services as an expert witness in his field. He volunteers his services for  Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth,  in his capacity as a board director.   Recently, his experiments related to the thermite theory of destruction for the WTC have become very influential among independent investigators.

David Chandler is known for his 9/11 vidoes and his success in getting NIST to admit free-fall acceleration for WTC building 7.   He is a graduate of  Harvey Mudd College and has an  MA from Claremont Graduate University, and an  MS in mathematics from Cal Poly, Pomona.   David’s article, WTC7: NIST Admits Freefall focuses on significant errors and descepancies in the final NIST report on the collapse of tower 7 and includes exerpts from a tehnical briefing held by NIST on August 26, 2008. During this briefing, questions were put to the panel by Chandler.   David’s videos related to the destruction of the WTC have made significant inroads in educating the public about the problems with the official investigations.

Laurie Manwell is a PhD candidate in Behavioral Neuroscience and Toxicology at the University of Guelph. She has published research on the effects of drugs on learning, memory, behavior, information processing, self-esteem, emotion, motivation, cellular and molecular biology, and most recently on political psychology and democracy (American Behavioral Scientist).   Her recent article was part of a special issue of six articles on State Crimes Against Democracy (SCADs) published in the February 2010 edition of American Behavioral Scientist.

Niels Harrit : After teaching Chemistry at the University of Copenhagen for forty years, Professor Harrit retired to devote his time to seeking truth and justice.   He has published numerous peer-reviewed articles in the best scientific journals  available and his most recent paper, “Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the WTC Catastrophe” has become a topic of great interest in the international community.  Professor Harrit now gives presentations on 9/11 to enthusiastic audiences around the world.

Richard Gage, AIA, is a San Francisco Bay Area architect and a member of the American Institute of Architects. He has been an architect for over 23 years and has worked on most types of building construction, including numerous fire-proofed, steel-framed buildings. Since founding Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth (AE911Truth) in 2006, Gage has presented Blueprint for Truth all over the world, and he has appeared on radio shows and television spots.  AE911Truth now includes nearly 1,500 licensed and degreed architects and engineers who are calling for a new investigation into the events at the World Trade Center on 9/11/01.

Graeme MacQueen received his Ph.D. in comparative religion from Harvard University and taught in the Religious Studies department of McMaster University for 30 years.  He became founding Director of the Centre for Peace Studies at McMaster, after which he co-directed peace-building projects in Sri Lanka, Gaza, Croatia and Afghanistan.   He has published numerous peer-reviewed articles and book chapters as well as four books. He has written four research articles on 9/11 and is a recognized authority on the eyewitness testimony related to the destruction of the WTC.

Kevin Ryan : Through his work at Underwriters Laboratories (UL), Ryan began to investigate the tragedy of September 11^th, 2001.   He was fired by UL, in 2004, for publicly asking questions about the WTC investigation being conducted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).  Ryan has served as co-editor of the Journal of 9/11 Studies, and a member and/or director of a number of 9/11 truth groups.   Additionally, Ryan has co-authored several books and peer-reviewed scientific articles on the subject.