The Independent prints LIHOP account from victim's father

[Mark Gobell]

In a major 9/11 article today The Independent includes an account from the father of Bobby McIlvaine, a South Tower victim

The Theorist: 'The hijackers were patsies and Osama bin Laden was set up'

Bobby McIlvaine, 26, worked for Merrill Lynch and was on the 103rd floor of the south tower when the plane struck. His father, Bob, lives in Oreland, near Philadelphia

Three months ago, Bob McIlvaine was pulled over in his home town of Oreland, near Philadelphia, for driving through a red light. Instead of apologising to the police officer, he went nuts. "I totally blew up, I threw all my papers in his face and called him Mickey Mouse and an *."

Bob, a former school teacher, recognises he has anger problems and also knows where they come from. On 9/11, he lost his son, 26-year-old Bobby, who had just begun working for the media department of Merrill Lynch and who was heading to a seminar on the 103rd floor of the south tower when the planes struck. And he is certain that criminals within the US government were responsible, not Osama bin Laden.

For the first few years, after the terror attack, Bob, 61, dedicated himself to anti-war groups that sprung up in its wake. He joined protesters pushing a massive stone dedicated to world peace down the highways of New England to New York and, last year, from Nagasaki to Hiroshima.

Today, he has withdrawn from those groups, however, to concentrate on a project he expects to take up the rest of his life: documenting and writing about the conspiracy that he believes was really responsible for the felling of the twin towers.

"I spend all my time researching 9/11," he admits. "Today, there are no ifs or buts in my mind that this was an inside job. The US government orchestrated it with the help of MI6 and Pakistan and Mossad. What they are telling us is bs. The hijackers were patsies and Osama bin Laden was set up."

He has no choice to continue with his quest for what he believes is the truth, he explains. " I feel empowered, now that I have some better understanding of what happened. My son was murdered and there is no plausibility to what they say."

But for all his focus on research, Bob is still far away from coming to terms with what happened. Losing his temper quickly is one symptom. "I will never be at peace. The pain never, never goes away, but the suffering isn't as bad."

But at least there is some perspective these days around the grief. "My wife, Helen, and I do more things nowadays and there are other problems to attend to. And we talk and laugh about Bobby now. That is something."

David Usborne

This and other accounts can be found here:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article1311190.ece