Matt Campbell, whose brother Geoff died in the World Trade Centre attacks, is using the 25th anniversary of 9/11 to renew his campaign for an inquiry into what he believes caused the collapse of the Twin Towers and World Trade Centre 7.
The Brighton reflexologist maintains that the official account is incomplete and alleges that explosives or incendiary devices, rather than the impact of the aircraft and subsequent fires alone, brought down the buildings. He has never identified who he believes was responsible, but suspects that elements of the US government or intelligence agencies may have helped conceal the truth.
Campbell is due to speak in New York this week at the “Turning the Tide: 9/11 25 Years Later” conference, alongside family members, first responders, researchers and campaigners. He will then return to Britain for a hearing at the UK Supreme Court on October 14 and 15, in a case that could determine whether the Attorney General’s refusal to allow a fresh inquest into Geoff’s death can be challenged through judicial review.
The Supreme Court is not being asked to decide whether the Twin Towers were demolished with explosives. Instead, it will consider whether the Attorney General’s decision-making power under the Coroners Act 1988 is subject to judicial review, and, if so, on what grounds.
Campbell’s fight to reopen the inquest
Geoff Campbell, a British national living in New York, was 31 when he died in the North Tower on September 11 2001. He had been attending a conference for Reuters on the 106th floor when the aircraft struck between the 93rd and 99th floors, leaving those above the impact zone trapped.
Matt Campbell, now 57, remembers his brother as “such a funny, nice guy” who was exceptionally talented. Geoff played badminton for England and was a strong chess player, his brother said.
“He died too young in an appalling, horrific way,” Campbell said.
A British inquest in 2013 concluded that Geoff died when the North Tower collapsed after an aircraft had been deliberately flown into it by al-Qaeda. Campbell argues that evidence supporting an alternative explanation was not properly examined.
He applied in 2021 for permission to seek a fresh inquest. The Attorney General refused, stating that the September 11 attacks had already been fully investigated. The High Court later held that the decision was not open to judicial review, but allowed Campbell to take the constitutional issue directly to the Supreme Court.
Campbell says the original inquest into Geoff and 10 other British victims lasted about 90 minutes. He wants the evidence he has gathered over the past two decades to be tested in court rather than dismissed without a hearing.
“There is evidence which has not been put before a court regarding my brother’s death,” he said. “All I ask is that it is allowed to be.”
He rejects the description of his views as a conspiracy theory, calling the phrase “lazy” and arguing that it is often used by people who have not examined the evidence.
“At the end of the day, no-one has been held accountable for the deaths in the building and towers, and that’s what we want,” he said.
Official findings disputed
Campbell’s position departs sharply from the findings of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the US agency that conducted a detailed technical investigation into the collapses.
NIST concluded that the aircraft impacts and the fires they caused initiated the collapses of the Twin Towers. It found that debris from the North Tower ignited fires in World Trade Centre 7, which burned for almost seven hours before heat-induced structural failures led to a progressive collapse.
The agency has said it found no evidence of a blast event or incendiary devices. Its research involved hundreds of specialists, interviews with more than 1,000 people, analysis of steel recovered from the site and extensive computer modelling.
NIST has also rejected the claim that World Trade Centre 7 fell entirely at free-fall speed. It said the visible descent lasted longer than a purely free-fall collapse would have taken, while internal structural failures preceded the movement of the exterior frame.
Richard Gage, an architect who supports the controlled-demolition theory, disputes those conclusions. He has argued that steel found after the attacks had been melted and that jet fuel could not have caused this. NIST says the collapse mechanism did not require melted steel and was driven by thermal expansion, structural damage and the failure of a critical column.
Campbell remains unconvinced. He says World Trade Centre 7 was the point at which he began questioning the official explanation, particularly the account of a building collapsing after office fires.
“I started looking into the Towers and they all have strange anomalies,” he said. “There was a lot of evidence supporting, in terms of eyewitnesses and expert testimony, the use of explosives or incendiaries, something other than jet fuel.”
The 9/11 Commission and US authorities attributed the attacks to al-Qaeda and the 19 hijackers who seized four aircraft. But the continuing failure to bring the alleged mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, to trial has added to Campbell’s frustration. A US military judge has now set a tentative trial date of June 2028, nearly 27 years after the attacks.
Campbell says the delayed proceedings, the handling of classified material and the limited examination of the buildings’ collapses have left victims’ families without the full legal process they expected.
“This will be debated forever,” he said. “But I want a trial, I want evidence to be tested. That’s what you expect after a murder – let alone a mass murder.”
He will attend the New York conference with his mother, Maureen, and his brother Rob. For Campbell, the visit is both a commemoration of Geoff and another stage in a campaign he says will continue until the evidence is heard in court.
