New York, United States – Saudi Arabia has again defended its governmentagainst allegations of providing support to the perpetrators of theSeptember 11, 2001, attacks in New York, as the kingdom’s lawyers facedfamily members of victims in a Manhattan federal courtroom.
Thursday’s hearing marked the third time a group of families of 9/11 victimsand survivors have tried to sue the Saudi government for damages relatingto the attack that killed nearly 3,000 people.
Fifteen of the 19 attackers were Saudi citizens.
It was the first hearing since Congress passed legislationlink>removingaspects of sovereign immunity that had prevented previous cases against theSaudi government from being heard.
Victims’ relatives, survivors and insurance companies have claimed thatmembers of the Saudi government supported the al-Qaeda-affiliated men whohijacked and crashed planes into New York’s World Trade Center, thePentagon outsideWashington, and a Pennsylvania field.
They also accuse Saudi Arabia of funding charities that supported Al Qaeda.
Terry Strada, national chair of 9/11 Families and Survivors United forJustice Against Terrorism, fought for the legislation to limit sovereignimmunity.
She said her group would keep pushing to expose what she sees as clearfinancial ties between the attack and the royal family.
“I’ll never be tired of doing this,” Strada told Al Jazeera. “We will fightuntil the end.”
She said her life had not been the same since she lost her husband, Tom,the father of her three children.
“I don’t have anything else. I’m going to take this as far as I can.”
In 2015, the suspicion that the Saudi attackers had help from theirgovernment was investigated and dismissed for lack of evidence by the 9/11Commission.
But lawyers for the plaintiffs say the commission’s report wasinconclusive, and new evidence has since come to light, includingpreviously classified documents and supporting testimony from two formerFBI agents and former Senator Bob Graham of Florida, who served on the 9/11Commission.’Hearsay and speculation’
Lawyers for Saudi Arabia say the accusations are “baseless” and are againtrying to get the case dismissed, arguing in court documents that the newevidence is “hearsay and speculation, insufficient to support the findingsrequired for jurisdiction over Saudi Arabia”.
The families believe the evidence shows that US-based Saudi governmentagents helped the hijackers and that the government knowingly fundedcharities that supported “anti-Western, jihadist ideology”.
Lawyer Sean Carter, who represents victims and their family members, toldthe judge that the charities were “the principal source of funding foral-Qaeda leading up to the 9/11 attacks”.
He argued the judge should allow the case to move forward to the nextphase, when the plaintiffs would be able to summon prominent members of theSaudi royal family and religious leadership to testify and providedocuments.
Saudi officials are trying to stop that from happening and accuse theplaintiffs of equating Islam with “terrorism”.
“To equate missionary work, building mosques, providing Qurans, withterrorism is not proper in this court,” lawyer Michael Kellogg argued incourt.
The judge could take up to four months to decide whether or not to let thetrial proceed.
If the trial is allowed to continue, it is likely to strain diplomatic andeconomic relations between the US and Saudi Arabia.
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA NEWS