Shortly before the 24th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, a federal judge in the Southern District of New York denied a motion by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) to dismiss the long-running lawsuit brought by the families of 9/11 victims against the monarchy.
Originally filed back in 2003, the civil action alleges the Saudi government both financed and assisted the 19 al-Qaeda suicide hijackers, claims which U.S. District Judge George B. Daniels adjudicated are legally sufficient to proceed to trial. The ruling is a major breakthrough for the relatives of those lost who have waited more than two decades to bring the Gulf state to court over its likely role in the terrorist attacks that murdered nearly 3,000 people.
The litigation can finally move forward because lawyers representing the Sunni dictatorship failed to account for why a suspected Saudi intelligence officer made living arrangements for two of the alleged hijackers in Southern California. He also seemingly possessed evidence of attack plans when he was arrested shortly after 9/11 at his residence in Birmingham, England. When the Saudi national, Omar al-Bayoumi, was taken into custody by London’s Metropolitan Police Service, a suspicious video was found in his garage showing the agent “casing” landmarks like the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., the probable intended destination of United Airlines Flight 93 which crashed in Pennsylvania. A curious sketch of an airplane with a Pythagorean theorem and handwritten calculations demonstrating the necessary altitude to reach a target was also seized on the premises.
This is a post by Max Parry at Covert Action Magazine. Read the full article here.
It will also be the topic of today’s podcast with Billy Bob. You can view it in the embedded video below: