Above, Mohammed al-Qudhaeein and Hamdan al-Shalawi;
Fresh evidence submitted in a major
9/11 lawsuit moving forward against the Saudi Arabian government reveals its
embassy in Washington may have funded a “dry run” for the hijackings carried
out by two Saudi employees, further reinforcing the claim employees and agents
of the kingdom directed and aided the 9/11 hijackers and plotters.
Two
years before the airliner attacks, the Saudi Embassy paid for two Saudi
nationals, living undercover in the US as students, to fly from Phoenix to
Washington “in a dry run for the 9/11 attacks,” alleges the amended complaint
filed on behalf of the families of some 1,400 victims who died in the terrorist
attacks 16 years ago.
The court filing provides new details
that paint “a pattern of both financial and operational support” for the 9/11
conspiracy from official Saudi sources, lawyers for the plaintiffs say. In
fact, the Saudi government may have been involved in underwriting the attacks
from the earliest stages — including testing cockpit security.
“We’ve long asserted that there were
longstanding and close relationships between al Qaeda and the religious
components of the Saudi government,” said Sean Carter, the lead attorney for the 9/11 plaintiffs.
“This is further evidence of that.”
Lawyers representing Saudi Arabia
last month filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which may finally be headed
toward trial now that Congress has cleared diplomatic-immunity hurdles. A
Manhattan federal judge has asked the 9/11 plaintiffs, represented by lead law
firm Cozen O’Connor, to respond to the motion by November.
Citing FBI documents, the complaint
alleges that the Saudi students — Mohammed al-Qudhaeein and Hamdan al-Shalawi — were in fact members of
“the Kingdom’s network of agents in the US,” and participated in the terrorist
conspiracy.
They
had trained at al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan at the same time some of the
hijackers were there. And while living in Arizona, they had regular contacts
with a Saudi hijacker pilot and a senior al Qaeda leader from Saudi now
incarcerated at Gitmo. At least one tried to re-enter the US a month before the
attacks as a possible muscle hijacker but was denied admission because he
appeared on a terrorist watch list.
Qudhaeein and Shalawi both worked for
and received money from the Saudi government, with Qudhaeein employed at the
Ministry of Islamic Affairs. Shalawi was also “a longtime employee of the Saudi
government.” The pair were in “frequent contact” with Saudi officials while in
the US, according to the filings.
During
a November 1999 America West flight to Washington, Qudhaeein and Shalawi are
reported to have tried multiple times to gain access to the cockpit of the
plane in an attempt to test flight-deck security in advance of the hijackings.
“After they boarded the plane in Phoenix, they
began asking the flight attendants technical questions about the flight that
the flight attendants found suspicious,” according to a summary of the FBI case
files.
“When the plane was in flight,
al-Qudhaeein asked where the bathroom was; one of the flight attendants pointed
him to the back of the plane,” it added. “Nevertheless, al-Qudhaeein went to
the front of the plane and attempted on two occasions to enter the cockpit.”
The
pilots were so spooked by the Saudi passengers and their aggressive behavior
that they made an emergency landing in Ohio. On the ground there, police
handcuffed them and took them into custody. Though the FBI later questioned
them, it decided not to pursue prosecution.
But
after the FBI discovered that a suspect in a counterterrorism investigation in
Phoenix was driving Shalawi’s car, the bureau opened a counterterrorism case on
Shalawi. Then, in November 2000, the FBI received reporting that Shalawi
trained at terrorist camps in Afghanistan and had received explosives training
to perform attacks on American targets. The bureau also suspected Qudhaeein was
a Saudi intelligence agent, based on his frequent contact with Saudi officials.
More, investigators learned that the
two Saudis traveled to Washington to attend a symposium hosted by the Saudi
Embassy in collaboration with the Institute for Islamic and Arabic Sciences in
America, which was chaired by the Saudi ambassador. Before being shut down for
terrorist ties, IIASA employed
the late al Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki as a lecturer. Awlaki ministered to
some of the hijackers and helped them obtain housing and IDs.
The
FBI also confirmed that Qudhaeein’s and Shalawi’s airline tickets for the
pre-9/11 dry run were paid for by the Saudi Embassy.
“The dry run reveals more of the
fingerprints of the Saudi government,” said Kristen Breitweiser, one of the New
York plaintiffs, whose husband perished at the World Trade Center.
“These guys were Saudi government
employees for years and were paid by the Saudi government,” she added. “In
fact, the Saudi Embassy paid for their plane tickets for the dry run.”
After the Nov. 19, 1999, incident —
which took place less than two months before the first hijackers entered the US
— both Saudi men held posts as Saudi government employees at the Imam Muhammad
Ibn Saudi Islamic University, the parent of IIASA — “a further indication of
their longstanding ties to the Saudi government,” the 9/11 complaint states.
Carter said in an interview that the
allegations that the Saudi Embassy sponsored a pre-9/11 dry run — along with
charges of other Saudi involvement in the 9/11 plot, from California to Florida — are based on “nearly
5,000 pages of evidence submitted of record and incorporated by
reference into the complaint.”
They include “every FBI report that
we have been able to obtain,” though hundreds of thousands of pages of
government documents related to Saudi terror funding remain secret.
Attempts to reach lawyers
representing the Saudi government by phone and email were unsuccessful.
However, in last month’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, they argued that the
plaintiffs cannot prove the kingdom or its employees directly supported the
hijackers.
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