Hundreds of 9/11 families have sued Saudi Arabia, accusing the country of funding the attacks and providing “cover” for Osama bin Laden and other key al-Qaeda members.
The personal injury and wrongful death suit, lodged at the U.S District Court in Manhattan, claims Saudi Arabia used government-controlled non-profits to fund the terrorist organisation, according to News Day.
Senior Saudi officials and al-Qaeda operatives used the charity front to wire millions of dollars through a tangled web of transfers and private businesses to get the funds to al-Qaeda terrorists, the suit says.
The complaint also claims that when the 19 hijackers landed in the U.S prior to the attacks, Saudi Arabia “state-run” groups directed government employees, including diplomats, to house them before supplying them with forged travel documents, weapons, cash and equipment – “all of which enabled al-Qaeda to conduct the September 11th Attacks”.
Retired FDNY Fire Chief James Riches, who responded to Ground Zero and lost his firefighter son to the Sept. 11 attacks, explained the importance of the suit to answer survivors’ questions.
“We’re going to find out what actually happened on 9/11,” he said early Tuesday morning. “If [Saudi Arabia] helped the terrorists commit terrorist acts on American soil, they’ll be held accountable. If the Saudis did nothing wrong, they have nothing to worry about.”
This suit has joined several others against Saudi Arabia after Congress passed a law allowing U.S citizens to sue a sovereign state if they played any role in terrorist attacks that killed Americans on U.S soil last year.
Then-president Obama had vetoed the bill claiming it set a “dangerous precedent” and could result in retaliatory action in foreign courts, putting U.S troops in legal jeopardy.
Saudi Arabia has categorically denied any involvement in the 9/11 attacks, in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals.
A commission investigating the 2001 plot found “no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded” al-Qaeda, but left open the possibility that Saudi officials may have played roles.
