Snoozing, half-blind security guard the first line of defence for new One World Trade Centre building
HE CAN barely see and loves a snooze on the job... Oh, and he’s the first line of defence for one of the world’s top terror targets.
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AN ageing, half-blind security guard assigned as the first line of defence inside the new World Trade Centre in New York was caught sleeping on the job.
A shocking photo obtained by The New York Post shows Abdul Basher, 65, stretched out nearly horizontal in his chair in the skyscraper’s south lobby, where he was the only guard assigned to protect the ground floor of the top US terror target.
Sources said a local official spotted Basher catching some Zs around 2:45am Saturday, almost six days to the hour after a teenage daredevil slipped past another snoozing guard on the 104th floor on his way to the tower’s iconic spire.
Basher, who was fired on the spot, admitted to The Post on Wednesday that he was the absolute wrong person for the job because he suffers from a nerve condition and can’t open his left eye, while the vision in his right is “hazy.”
“Sometimes I cannot recognise people, stairs,” the Queens resident said.
“That post was so hard to cover for me. It was very, very stressful. I could barely see half of the lobby.”
Security at One World Trade Centre has been called into question after a pair of high-profile breaches, including a September 30 BASE jump from the skyscraper’s spire, which the parachutists recorded on video.
Basher — a shop steward for the 32BJ union who ironically was named its “Security Officer of the Year” for 2013 — also said he was “just getting ready to go on disability.”
His stunning admissions followed President Obama’s statement on Tuesday that his greatest fear was “the prospect of a nuclear weapon going off in Manhattan.”
Basher also claimed that he wasn’t really conked out.
“To my knowledge, actually I was not sleeping. I was mistaken to be sleeping. I was exercising my eyes,” he said.
WTC guard Abdul Basher demonstrates his eye exercises, which he claims brass mistook for sleeping on the job. http://t.co/HKwJ5ocg0r
— Reuven Fenton (@ReuvenFen) March 26, 2014The Port Authority, which owns the site, referred all questions to the Durst Organisation, which supplies the guards inside One World Trade Center as part of a joint venture with the PA.
But a high-ranking insider at the agency called the incident “troubling” and said Durst execs would be called out.
Dared spokesman Jordan Barowitz confirmed that Basher “was terminated on the spot after he was found sleeping on the job,” but wouldn’t say if he had to be physically roused from slumber.
Barowitz also refused to specify what measures, if any, would be taken to prevent future security screw-ups.
In addition to last week’s trespassing arrest of New Jersey thrillseeker Justin Casquejo, 16, police on Monday busted three BASE jumpers who admitted parachuting from the building September 30.
Construction workers at Ground Zero were outraged when shown the photo of Basher with his head tilted back and his eyes covered with dark glasses.
“There’s our hardworking security right there … What a joke,” one said.
Another fumed that guards asleep on the job were only part of the problem.
“They play Candy Crush, they even have the Hulu to keep themselves entertained,” the hard-hat said.
“It’s f — king ridiculous.”
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