9/11: The Hamburg Cell
9/11 killers 'all quite ordinary'
Channel 4 is set to broadcast the first major dramatisation of the September 11 plot, just before the third anniversary of the 2001 attacks on America.
The Hamburg Cell, which will be shown on September 2, reconstructs the events from the point of view of three of the 9/11 hijackers: Mohamed Atta, Ramzi bin al Shibh and Ziad Jarrah.
The drama's writer, Ronan Bennett, said: "We routinely call the 9/11 hijackers fanatics, but in actual fact they were all really quite ordinary."
The Hamburg Cell, reveals that most of the suicide hijackers were stricken by doubt as the fateful day approached.
Ringleader Mohamed Atta had doubts and almost pulled out of the attacks, and Ziad Jarrah was riven between Islamic fundamentalism and love for his highly Westernised fiancee.
"The more I talked to people who knew the hijackers, the more I was intrigued by the contradictions of their private lives," says dramatist Ronan Bennett.
The dramatisation retraces the steps of Mohamed Atta and two fellow hijackers from Germany to Afghanistan and on to America for the 9/11 attacks.
It shows one of the hijackers, Ziad Jarrah, being stopped for speeding on September 9, and calling his fiancee to say he loves her immediately before he boards the fateful 9/11 flight.
"It is easy to see the 9/11 plotters as psychopaths," says Channel 4 head of documentary Peter Dale. "But this is a unique insight into their mindset."
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