More than two decades after the victims of the attack on September 11 began to accept the Saudi Arabian government, responsible for the help of Kaida terrorists who conducted the story, the federal judge ruled that a civil lawsuit against the kingdom could go to court.
The decision on Thursday by Judge George B. Daniels from the South District of New York on Manhattan is a decisive victory for those who survived with attacks and relatives of 2977 people killed.
“This is a historical victory for families,” said Brett Igleson, whose father was killed in the World Trade Center. “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will be held accountable.”
Saudi Arabian Embassy press in Washington, Fahad Nazer, did not respond to a statement to the judge’s decision.
The Saudi Kingdom, which has long rejected the claims of the plaintiffs, can still appeal the Daniels’ decision as part of the special protection provided by the foreign government in the federal law, legal experts said. However, they added that the Saudi government may be ready to consider the plaintiffs to avoid control over the major lawsuits and the broad opening of the information it will bring.
Already, the information revealed by the plaintiffs rewritten the story of the plot on September 11, when it was presented during the attacks by the George W. Bush administration and the 9/11 two -party commission.
Most importantly, the plaintiff’s data undermined the FBI conclusion that two Saudi Arabian officials in South California-One spy, the second-religious official with diplomatic status, acting “unwittingly” when they assisted the first Kaida hacker who arrived in the US.
The FBI also refused to comment on the judge’s e -mail.
It has long been found that over the years until September 11, some members of the Saudi Royal Family and some powerful Saudi officials supported militant Islamist movements and gave money to Islamic charity organizations that assisted al-Qaeda and other extremist groups.
However, both the FBI and the CIA emphasized after the attacks that the Saudi royal family was the enemy al-Qaeda and its exiled leader Usama Bin Laden, and that high-ranking government officials did not help the group.
The lawsuit in New York was focused on the roles of two lower-level Saudi officials. Omar Omar al-Bayumi was a middle-aged postgraduate student in San Diego, who has long worked at the Saudi Civil Aviation Agency. The second, Fahad al-Tumari, was a religious official who served in Los Angeles as an imam in a new mosque funded by Saudi Arabia, and as a diplomat at the Saudi Consulate.
The FBI quickly determined that Bayumi met the first two kidnappers near the mosque immediately after they flew to Los -Andgeles in January 2000 and that he helped them rent an apartment in San Diego, open a bank account and buy a car.
Bayumi also presented two jihadists who did not know anyone in the US, practically did not talk in the West in the West – with a group of Muslims who gave them decisive support in the few months they lived in the city.
Bayumi moved with his family to Birmingham, England, in the summer of 2001. For a few days after the attacks, he was detained and interrogated by British police at the request of the FBI before he was allowed to return to Saudi Arabia.
In search of the house of Bayumi, the British authorities appeared documents, notebooks, video tapes and computer files they shared with the FBI, officials said. But only in the last two years, the lawyers for the families on September 11 received most of this cache – and then only from the British government.
From the very beginning, the US investigators were skeptical of the bay. After all, however, FBI has largely accepted its claims that he accidentally met two Kaida operatives, helped them, because he would be any compatriots and did not imagine their terrorist plans. Both Bayumi and the Saudi government have repeatedly insisted that it had no connection with Saudi intelligence.
Despite Efforts of a small group of FBI agents In order to chase the case, she was as a result closed by the bureau. The civil lawsuit almost died in 2016, when President Barack Obama had vetoed the legislation to make an exception from the sovereign immunity of foreign governments and allow families to sue the Saudi Kingdom. However, Congress canceled this veto, which allows the lawsuit to go forward.
Later President Donald Trump blocked families From obtaining the united state documents for the September 11 investigation, saying they were state secrets. Later President Joe Biden canceled this position and declassified documents that included a report confirming this Bayumi was an incomplete agent Saudi intelligence service.
The evidence that the lawyers of the plaintiffs received from the British government were even more powerful.
It included video tapes in which Bayumi shot touring in Washington before attacks on September 11 with two visiting Saudi religious officials who had extensive connections with militants. In one of the tapes, he shot the US Capitol, describing his layout and security of an unspecified audience. The lawyers of the plaintiffs suggested that Bayumi and his associates were “defenders” for Caida Plisters; The Saudi Arabian government insisted in court that it was a tourist video.
In his decree, Daniels noted that both sides had different interpretations of virtually every evidence. But he supported the views of the plaintiffs for several key exhibits, including the aircraft chart found in one of the non -bay notebooks. Referring to aviation experts, the lawyers of the plaintiffs said the image and calculations near it showed how the aircraft could hit the object on the ground. Saudis lawyers suggested that Bayumi attracted him, helping his son with homework.
Daniels said the proof of the plaintiffs created “a great likelihood that the roles of the fights and the Tummira in the plans of the abductors and the role of their employer” of the Saudi government. “In many cases,” he added, “it turned out that Bayumi actively introduced himself” into the illegal activities of the abductor.
The press -secretary of the Iglson families noted that during the long trial the plaintiffs were allowed to continue only the limited opening about the boyum, the Tumir and a handful of other Saudis.
“We did all this with our hands tied behind our backs,” he said, “and even when the FBI pushes back, and President Trump turned to state secrets, we created a predominant picture of the role of Saudi Arabia on September 13.
