Survivors who have been battling cancer and other life-threatening illnesses since the 9/11 terror attacks were shocked and outraged to learn that the mastermind and two co-conspirators of the terrorist plot would avoid the death penalty.
Several victims made ill by toxic debris from the collapsed Twin Towers on Thursday slammed plea deals reached by U.S. military prosecutors with three suspected terrorists being held at Guantanamo Bay, including the ringleader, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
“It’s disgusting. He killed 3,000 people. Over 3,000 if you consider the people who have died since he caused this pain and suffering,” said Steven Hanges, a former officer with the New York Highway Patrol for 20 years who was diagnosed with thyroid cancer late last year.
“At the very least, the man should receive what he gave us,” Hanges told the Post.
Hanges began experiencing lung symptoms a few weeks after 9/11 and suffered from rhinitis, sinusitis and obstructive sleep apnea for several years afterward, but the tumor was removed and he is now recovering well. But when news of the plea deal broke, the pain returned.
“They made a deal with the devil,” he said.
Edgardo Lopez, 57, a former New York Police Department officer and 9/11 first responder who lost his laryngeal cancer and vocal cords to aggressive chemotherapy and radiation treatments, said the defendants “should have received an automatic death sentence from the start.”
“There should never have been a plea deal,” he said.
“I’m an eye for an eye kind of guy,” he added. “When you commit a heinous act and you end up with not one but like 3,000 dead people… no, I don’t think so. They had it easy.”
Former New York City Deputy Fire Chief Al Santora said that despite having been diagnosed with prostate and skin cancer since the attacks, he considers himself “one of the lucky ones” compared with others who were at and around Ground Zero that fateful Tuesday.
Santora and his wife, Maureen, lost their 23-year-old son, Christopher, a New York City Fire Department firefighter, in the attack.
The couple was suddenly surprised by the terrorist plea deal and only found out about it when they received a call from a reporter.
“I think we’re wasting a lot of time and effort on things that are unnecessary,” he said, referring to the suspects’ protracted cases that have dragged on for more than two decades.
“They could have been tried and I think they should have been put to death.”
Richie Alles, 67, a former deputy chief of the New York City Fire Department who was diagnosed with prostate cancer last November, said people battling 9/11-related illnesses “all see themselves as a time bomb,” he said, grimly acknowledging that “it’s not a question of if you’re going to get sick, it’s a question of when.”
He said he wasn’t surprised by his diagnosis and has been dealing with it as best he can.
“At least I’m still here and I can tell this story,” he said.
Alles said he believes the U.S. Department of Justice “did a disservice to the families who lost loved ones on 9/11, and to the innocent emergency responders and survivors who suffered from cancer afterward.”
Emergency workers were not the only ones to fall ill due to their proximity to the attack.
Michael Barash, 69, managing partner of the Butler Law Firm, also practices at 11 Park Place and continues to represent firefighters, and is general counsel for the Feal Good Foundation, which advocates for emergency responders injured or ill in the line of duty.
Barash, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer five years ago and skin cancer last year, said not a day goes by that one or two of his clients don’t die from a 9/11-related illness.
“We now have 6,000 people who have died from 9/11-related illnesses – twice the number who died on those days. I’m hearing from these clients and they’re outraged. They’ve waited 23 years for their day in court. This isn’t just a day in court for the accused, it’s a day in court for the victims.”
He said the plea deal “deprives the families of the 9/11 victims of the opportunity they have been waiting for. It robs them of the justice they so rightly deserve.”
The terrorist attacks claimed a huge number of casualties, including emergency response chiefs and union leaders, many of whom died of cancer and other illnesses years later.
The Port Authority lost 84 employees on 9/11, including 37 Port Authority police officers, but the losses are compounded by a growing list of colleagues who have died from illnesses contracted after the attacks, Port Authority PBA Chairman Frank Conti said.
“This plea agreement is not justice. Rather, it represents the system’s failure to bring these murderers to justice for over 20 years,” he said.
“These men are responsible for the murder of 2,977 men, women and children on that terrible day. They are also responsible for the hundreds of others who have died from disease over the past 20 years.”
The FDNY lost 343 officers on Sept. 11, 2001, and continues to lose officers to illnesses brought on by the aftermath of the attacks.
Andy Ansbro, president of the New York City Fire Department’s Uniformed Firefighters Association, whose father, a former NYPD traffic chief, died last June from a 9/11-related illness after a years-long battle with cancer, said the union was “shocked and outraged” that the U.S. government would offer a plea deal to a terrorism suspect.
“Every month, firefighters die from 9/11 related illnesses. I am outraged that we have allowed this to happen without seeing to the execution of these men.”
Jim Brosi, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, echoed the outrage from other groups and agencies, calling the plea deal “outrageous.”
“Firefighters continue to die as a result of these terrorist-orchestrated attacks… It is difficult to imagine why such a plea deal would be offered to the monsters who committed a crime that caused approximately 3,000 deaths and continues to take the lives of those exposed to Ground Zero’s harmful effects,” he said.
“Where is the justice that has been promised for the past 23 years?”
— Additional reporting by Larry Cerona
