A joint group of 1,500 9/11 first responders and the families of 800 victims filed a lawsuit against the Saudi government in federal court on Monday for allegedly funding the attack on the WTC. The suit also targets US officials who provided cover for Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his followers.
Fifteen out of the 19 9/11 hijackers were Saudi nationals and three of them had previously worked for the kingdom.
According to the suit, several “charity” groups controlled by the Saudi government were being used by senior Saudi officials, including diplomats, and al-Qaida operatives to maneuver millions of dollars through a web of channels to the al-Qaida terrorists from the moment they arrived in the US until they carried out the 9/11 attacks.
The lawsuit alleges that Saudi “employees and agents” funneled cash to al-Qaida in the months before the attack, via a mosque in Culver City, California.
The plaintiffs’ filing in federal court followed a vote in Congress last September to override President Barack Obama’s veto of legislation that allowed 9/11 victims’ families to sue Saudi Arabia. The plaintiffs are asking for unspecified punitive damages, saying the Saudis “intentionally aided, abetted and counseled al-Qaida.”
According to the 194-page lawsuit, Saudi officials knew al-Qaida and its leader, bin Laden, were behind attacks against the United States around the world and were involved in planning additional attacks. The lawsuit asserts that “the September 11th Attacks could not have occurred absent the knowing and substantial assistance provided to al-Qaida by Saudi Arabia, and those attacks and resulting injuries and deaths were a natural, probable and reasonably foreseeable consequence of Saudi Arabia’s conduct.”
