Tapes Exposed

Here is Part 2 of the Tapes .. if you want to see the video of the reporting, just click below

VIDEO: David Henry reports from 30th Street Station - Part 2

There is new information on Hani Hassanin and his video tapes of the Delaware Valley.

On this report, a woman who new him and an eerie connection between his tapes and the recent shut down of a local water tank. Tonight, part two of our exclusive reports on a man who may have been scooping out terror targets in the Delaware Valley. He came to this country eight years before the 9-11 terror attacks and, as we'll see, he over stayed his welcome. He also alarmed people with his views on Ossama bin Laden.

The man who made the tapes is Hany Hassanin, originally from Egypt. He entered the country through New York on a visitor visa in August of 1992, just six months before the first World Trade Center bombing.

He managed to get a social security card. During the three years before 9-11 he lived at various addresses in the Delaware Valley.

In Philadelphia, Langhorne, Bensalem, Perkasie, Levittown, and again in Philadelphia, in this rooming house along with several other Middle Eastern men.

For a while he lived with a woman. She says before 9-11 they watched a television report about Ossama bin Laden and Hany made it clear he was a firm supporter of the terror leader and his anti-American hatred.

"You know, if you hate our government, if you hate it so much, what are you doing? What are you here for?
Another women tells us after 9-11 Hany was fired from his job at a diner for arguing with coworkers about bin Laden. In the months leading up to 9-11 he made a video road map of the Delaware Valley, taping specific public facilities.

Ed Turzanski/CENTER FOR TERRORISM & COUNTERTERRORISM:

"It's chilling because, certainly, this is not benign. There's a purpose behind this, and the purpose is not a good one." Hany turns his camera on, what Turzanski calls, high profile targets of opportunity; shopping malls, a power plant and transportation hubs. In this case, Lake Nockamixon in Bucks County.

It is a direct water source for a nearby community and feeds into the Delaware river ... which supplies water to Trenton, Philadelphia and other municipalities.

Coincidentally, the Lake Nockamixon Park was shut down last week when a ranger discovered the locks on this water tower had been broken open in four places, including the locks on the hatch on top.

Investigators, so far, have no evidence to connect this incident to Hany's activities, but the FBI has been contacted.

Testing shows the water was not contaminated. Just before 9-11 Hany launches a physical transformation. He turns the camera on himself, hours of exercising, eventually showing off his new physique.

And there's Hany on 9-11, the day of the terror attacks. He spends a restless night. He's up at just before 2 AM taping police activity on the street below.

The camera is rolling again around three in the morning. Then at 12:30 in the afternoon, hours after the first planes hit the World Trade Center, Hany seems to want evidence that he's in Philadelphia.

He has a friend take his picture and check on the date stamp.

They then take the camera outside to shoot Philadelphia landmarks, including the towers of Center City. We turned the tapes over to the FBI.

"Once we were able to do some investigation and identify the individual, it turned out we were already familiar with him." One month after 9-11 Hany was arrested here at 30th Street Station. He had been videotaping interiors of the building. The authorities investigated and found he had overstayed his visitor's visa by eight years. Hany was turned over to the INS and deported. Unfortunately, that was before the FBI knew about these videotapes.

Ed Turzanski/CENTER FOR TERRORISM & COUNTERTERRORISM:

"It's tragic that they did not have these tapes when INS picked him up, because this man ought to be in custody." By the time the authorities paid a visit to Hany's rooming house, his associates were gone. Neighbors say they bolted out the back door. Turzanski believes they may have been an Al-Qaida sleeper cell, possibly planning a second wave of attacks. If the FBI knows who they are and what they were up to, they're not saying.

They say they have no evidence that Hany and his associates were members of a terror cell. But that may be because they knew too little too late without these videotapes.

We don't know where Hany is now. But, the FBI is concerned enough to have placed him on an international watch list. Authorities are on the lookout for him in 40 countries. And he's been red flagged if he tries to reenter this country.

David Henry, Channel 6 Action News.

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