[New Tang Dynasty News, Beijing, September 11, 2021]Twenty years after the “September 11” terrorist attack, the heart-piercing pain of that year seemed to have been sealed in memory by the New Yorker. The Associated Press reporter Drew photographed the moment when a man jumped from the World Trade Center with his head up and down when the “9•11” terrorist attack occurred. Considered the most perfect news photo ever.
The Central News Agency reported that on the day of the September 11 terrorist attacks, Richard Drew was standing at the intersection of West Street and Vesey Street, downstairs of the North Tower of the World Trade Center, and the smoke was thick. He could barely see the road, he had difficulty breathing, and the rubble kept falling.
He heard several loud noises in succession, thinking it was the sound of concrete shards falling to the ground, “But I was wrong. It was the sound of people falling from a height and hitting the sidewalk.”
He looked up and saw a man falling from the air, and immediately picked up the camera to take 8 consecutive shots. Even after hearing a loud noise like an explosion, he kept pressing the shutter. Because he was too close to the building, he did not notice that the whole building was about to collapse.
“An emergency rescuer pulled me and saved my life.” As he ran, the building leaned toward them, but he turned around and took another 9 photos.
Seeing this tragedy affected him for a long time. Every time I heard a plane flying over my head, I guessed it was an enemy or a friend.
Someone asked him how he could take pictures of someone about to die in cold blood. Drew said that he had never thought this way, he thought what he was doing was recording the last moment of a person’s life. “Every time I see this photo, I think he is still alive.”
“Junzi Magazine” reporter Tom Junod visited several families of the victims to try to confirm the identity of the man in the photo. During the interview, the family members had different reactions.
Drew said that Junod did not find out the identity of the person in the “Falling Man” after all, “but we already know that the people in the photo are actually you and me.”
“My job is to record history”: @AP photographer Richard Drew describes experience covering 9/11 on @CBSSunday. https://t.co/nYtmnL1kuJ
– AP CorpComm (@AP_CorpComm) September 7, 2021
Drew said, “My family called it a lingering photo.” Most newspaper editors refused to publish this photo. The day after the terrorist attack, newspapers willing to publish the photo received hundreds of reports from readers.
Twenty years later, Drew was still talking about this photo when he was invited to participate in national talk shows, interviews with foreign TV programs, and when universities in the United States invited him to give lectures.
“Esquire” wrote a 7000-word article praising this photo as a classic. The singer Elton John who likes to collect photography also said, “This may be the perfect time to press One of the photos under the shutter”.
Drew said that when the second building of the World Trade Center began to collapse towards him, he took hundreds of photos before being pulled aside by rescuers. “Falling Man” was one of them.
The U.S. will restart the trial of the century
On the morning of September 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked 4 civil airliners, 3 of which crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York and the US Department of Defense. , The other was subdued by the crew and crashed into Pennsylvania, causing nearly 3,000 deaths.
US President Biden signed an executive order on the 3rd, instructing the Department of Justice and relevant agencies to review, declassify and publish investigation documents on the “9•11” terrorist attacks, and make them public within six months.
On the 7th, the authorities restarted the relevant legal procedures for the “9•11” terrorist attack, and once again sent the five defendants suspected of planning the terrorist attack to a military court, hoping to put an end to the protracted “Trial of the Century”. .
Agence France-Presse reported that the prisons at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base Prison were all suspects arrested by the United States in the “War on Terror”, Pakistani nationality Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) who claimed to be the head of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and others. The four defendants have been detained here for nearly 15 years.
This will be the first time that five people have appeared in a military court since the beginning of 2019.
After the case was suspended for 17 months due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the proceedings may continue from where it was interrupted. Defense lawyers tried to claim that Mohammed and others were continuously tortured during detention by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), so most of the evidence held by the government was not eligible.
The new military judge and Air Force Colonel Matthew McCall is the eighth judge in the case. He hinted on the 5th that the trial will start slowly, and on the 7th, a preliminary hearing focused on his qualifications was held. The war crimes court allowed lawyers from both sides to question the possible bias of the new judge.
As there are dozens of motions requiring military prosecutors to present evidence that they refuse to hand over, defense lawyers said that the pre-trial stage could easily last another year, leaving hope for a jury trial and verdict a long way off.
Mohamed and other five people will appear in the heavily guarded military committee courts surrounded by barbed wire. Each defendant will have his own defense team. Some family members of 9/11 victims and a large group of reporters will listen in the gallery.
The five defendants face charges of murder and terrorism in the war crimes court. If convicted, they will not escape the death penalty.
(Editor in charge: Lu Yongxin)
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