PRESS RELEASE
Saudis Finally Facing Their Day in Court
March 31, 2017 (EIRNS)—Earlier this month, two amended complaints were filed in Federal Court in the Southern District of New York against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, re-admitting them to the long-running civil law suit filed by families and survivors of 9/11. The brief by the law firm Motley Rice runs 978 pages, and contains additional material released last year, including the 28 pages from the original Joint Congressional Inquiry Report and the "Document 17" of the 9/11 Commission, which identified more than 20 Saudi officials who had contact with the hijackers.
A second, complementary amended complaint by Kreindler and Kreindler runs 194 pages. Combined, the two complaints provide the most comprehensive evidentiary profile of the role of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in financing Al Qaeda and other jihadist groups to the tune of at least $30 million a year, dating back to the early 1990s. The Saudis were added to the suit again, as the result of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), which President Obama vetoed but Congress overrode in September 2016.
In addition to the Court actions, a group of 9/11 family members wrote this week to Attorney General Jeffrey Sessions, filing a formal documentary complaint that the Kingdom had violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act, by engaging in a string of fraudulent actions, all directed at getting Congress to repeal or modify JASTA. The letter, which called for a full Department of Justice investigation, was based, in part, on the evidence recently published, showing that lobbyists hired by the Kingdom were lying to war veterans whom they were bringing to Washington to oppose JASTA, by failing to disclose they were on the Saudi regime payroll.
