It was about 6 AM on a cool morning in May of 2011 when associate producer Christina Diaz and I, along with a camera crew, pulled up in front of an auto parts store in the working class, blue collar town of Paterson, NJ. We were trying to find a man named Daoud Chehazeh, a Syrian who has been linked to two of the 9/11 hijackers as well as terror mastermind Anwar Awlaki. Although never charged in the 9/11 case, the government was trying to deport him and we wanted to get his side of the story. We didn’t have his phone number, so we couldn’t arrange a meeting. Our contacts had given us a possible address, located on a busy Paterson street and above a small auto parts store. We parked our truck and waited. We didn’t even know if he was home. But we had brought him a gift – a box of baklava – a sticky sweet Greek pastry we thought might make the morning ambush a little more palatable for Chehazeh.
When Chehazeh finally did emerge shortly after 8 AM, we rushed up to him and immediately began our questioning. “How did you know Anwar Awlaki?” “Don’t you think it’s strange that you knew two of the 9/11 hijackers.?” At first he seemed shocked that a camera crew would be waiting for him as he left for work. But he quickly regained his composure and began to slowly answer our questions, claiming that he had no idea of the hijackers plot and was only trying to help them situate themselves in this country. He claimed to have no knowledge of Awlaki’s terror plots and said he only traveled down to the mosque in Virginia because he was seeking work. “Was there no work in Paterson?” I asked. He didn’t answer my question.
Chehazeh soon begged off, claiming he had to get to work. We gave him the baklava, which seemed to make him happy. He said he would offer some to his buddies at work. As he smiled and climbed into his old red Toyota, I wondered just how much he really knew about the 9/11 plots that killed more than 3000 Americans.
By Steven Tierney
