U.S. District Court Dismisses Saudi Arabia as a State from 9/11 Families’ Lawsuit; Individual Saudis Remain as Defendants

U.S. District Court Judge George Daniels dismissed claims against Saudi Arabia as a sovereign state in a lawsuit brought by the families of victims of the 9/11 attacks, Reuters and AP reported yesterday. However, Judge Daniels let the families’ claims against Saudi individuals named as defendants stand. Sean Carter, one of the families’ lawyers, said plaintiffs would appeal the ruling.

Judge Daniels ruled that the plaintiffs did not provide sufficient evidence to override Saudi Arabia’s claim of sovereign immunity. He ruled that the plaintiffs’ evidence would have to prove that Saudi Arabia or its officials actively supported the 9/11 attack.

The plaintiffs’ brief argued that even U.S. government officials who served on bodies that investigated 9/11 believe Saudi Arabia’s role needs more investigation. The plaintiffs obtained affidavits from former Navy Secretary John Lehman and former U.S. Senator Bob Kerrey, both of whom served on the 9/11 Commission, which assert that the 9/11 Commission did not exonerate Saudi Arabia, and that its report expressly left room for further investigation of the Saudi government’s possible ties to the attackers. In addition, Senator Bob Graham, who co-chaired a congressional investigation of the attacks, said in an affidavit for the plaintiffs that, in his view, two Saudi officials in the U.S. at the time of the attacks lent support to the attackers.

Plaintiffs’ attorney Carter said that “evidence central to these claims continues to be treated as classified, putting the plaintiffs at a great disadvantage… The government’s decision to continue to classify that material certainly factored into this outcome.”

Judge Daniels also dismissed new evidence from Zacarias Moussaoui, known as the “20th hijacker,” who claimed that a Saudi prince financially supported him while he was in flight school, and also gave large amounts of money to some of the attackers. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia was previously dismissed as a defendant in the 9/11 families litigation in 2005, but the judgment was vacated in 2013 after the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals partly overturned its precedent on the tort exception to foreign sovereign immunity.

The ruling by the Judge removing the government of Saudi Arabia and the Saudi High Commission on Bosnia-Herzegovina from the suit explicitly benefits King Salman, who was not only the head of the High Commission when it provided an estimated $125 million to Al Qaeda during the late 1990s.  He has deepened the links between the House of Saud and the Wahhabi clergy since becoming King.