Families of 9/11 victims sue Saudi Arabia

21.03.2017

Families of 800 victims are accusing Saudi Arabia of funding the 9/11 Al-Qaeda attacks.

The lawsuit has been filed in federal court in the Southern District of New York in Manhattan. The claim seeks unspecified monetary damages.

Riyadh denies everything

"Saudi Arabia behaved in a two-faced manner," the suit said. "It posed itself to the United States and other Western countries as a state fighting against Al-Qaeda and terrorism, when in fact some people from the Saudi government provided Al-Qaeda with significant material support."

The suit names several Saudi Arabian charities that worked with Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to open offices in Pakistan and Afghanistan and establish the terrorist organization, the suit alleges.

Riyadh has denied involvement, and also said that Saudi Arabia would sell all its assets in the United States for hundreds of billions of dollars to prevent their arrest.

Families grateful to Trump

The filing of this lawsuit is the first big step after Congress in September overrode President Barack Obama’s veto of legislation that allowed relatives of those killed on September 11th to sue Saudi Arabia.

In the United States, it has been repeatedly suggested that the authorities of the kingdom turned a blind eye to the activities of Al-Qaeda and could even have contacts with this group, and therefore bear some of the responsibility for these acts of terrorism.

President Trump repeatedly backed this initiative during election campaign.

The representative of the victims’ families made an official statement that they are grateful to Congress and to President Trump who has backed their efforts.

"We just hope President Trump continues,"  said the lawyer ,”I would like to hear some continued expressions of support by the president."