Documents Back Saudi Link to Extremists

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Documents Back Saudi Link to Extremists
New York Times By ERIC LICHTBLAU

Published: June 23, 2009
WASHINGTON — Documents gathered by lawyers for the families of Sept. 11 victims provide new evidence of extensive financial support for Al Qaeda and other extremist groups by members of the Saudi royal family, but the material may never find its way into court because of legal and diplomatic obstacles.

Amel Emric/Associated Press
A German intelligence report described bank transfers made in the early 1990s by Prince Salman bin Abdul Aziz and other members of the Saudi royal family to a charity that was suspected of financing militants’ activities in Pakistan and Bosnia.

The case has put the Obama administration in the middle of a political and legal dispute, with the Justice Department siding with the Saudis in court last month in seeking to kill further legal action. Adding to the intrigue, classified American intelligence documents related to Saudi finances were leaked anonymously to lawyers for the families. The Justice Department had the lawyers’ copies destroyed and now wants to prevent a judge from even looking at the material.

The Saudis and their defenders in Washington have long denied links to terrorists, and they have mounted an aggressive and, so far, successful campaign to beat back the allegations in federal court based on a claim of sovereign immunity.

Allegations of Saudi links to terrorism have been the subject of years of government investigations and furious debate. Critics have said that some members of the Saudi ruling class pay off terrorist groups in part to keep them from being more active in their own country.

But the thousands of pages of previously undisclosed documents compiled by lawyers for the Sept. 11 families and their insurers represented an unusually detailed look at some of the evidence.

Internal Treasury Department documents obtained by the lawyers under the Freedom of Information Act, for instance, said that a prominent Saudi charity, the International Islamic Relief Organization, heavily supported by members of the Saudi royal family, showed “support for terrorist organizations” at least through 2006.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/world/middleeast/24saudi.html?_r=1

Here's another link if first one isn't working ...
http://article.wn.com/view/2009/06/24/Documents_Back_Saudi_Link_to_Extremists/



AND just noticed this article I wasn't aware of ...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090629/us_nm/us_sept11_saudi_lawsuit

Top court lets stand Saudi immunity in 9/11 case
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Delicious Digg Facebook Fark Newsvine Reddit StumbleUpon Technorati Yahoo! Bookmarks Print By James Vicini James Vicini – Mon Jun 29, 11:23 am ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday let stand a ruling that Saudi Arabia, four of its princes and other Saudi entities cannot be held liable for the September 11, 2001, hijacked plane attacks in the United States.

The justices refused to review the ruling by a U.S. appeals court in New York that the Saudi defendants were protected by sovereign immunity in the lawsuit brought by victims of the attacks and their families.

The appeals court had upheld a lower court's dismissal of the lawsuit claiming Saudi Arabia, four princes, a Saudi charity and a Saudi banker provided material support to al Qaeda before the September 11 attacks.

The victims and their families argued that because the defendants gave money to Muslim charities that in turn gave money to al Qaeda, they should be held responsible for helping to finance the attacks.

The appeals court ruled that exceptions to the sovereign immunity rule do not apply because Saudi Arabia has not been designated a state sponsor of terrorism by the U.S. State Department.

Attorneys for the victims appealed to the Supreme Court. They said the appeals court's ruling dramatically limited the ability of victims to recover damages for acts of terrorism committed in the United States.

But the Obama administration late last month urged the high court to reject the appeal. It said New York courts correctly concluded that Saudi Arabia and its officials are immune from lawsuit for governmental acts outside the United States.

The Supreme Court turned down the appeal without comment.

(Reporting by James Vicini, Editing by Deborah Charles and Will Dunham)






US/CIA was supporting Taliban with $124 million -- including $ just before 9/11 --
Taliban/AlQaeda were ours

[gleaner]

1. I'm not surprised....

The Saudis have been buttering the Bush bread since the 1930s, before the Saud royal family even ran Saudi Arabia. They are long time business associates and friends.

Fifteen of the 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, and Bush let the Bin Ladin family leave the USA before the FBI had a chance to question them. They may not have known what Osama Bin Ladin was up to, but if it had been a regular criminal investigation they would have been questioned for information which may have helped to find Osama.

Your post is good and you are presenting information which people need to know. I guess I am still rankling under the fact that it is being presented openly seven years after the attacks on the World Trade Center, but was suppressed by our "free" media outlets at the time it was fresh and current. I wonder who twisted their collective tails?

[zbdent]

2. W was partnered with Osama's brother in the 70s, and Poppy was meeting

with the bin Ladens ON 9/11 ...

and, as Jesse Ventura said ... Repugs spent $100 MILLION investigating Clinton's weiner, but only allocated $4 million to investigate 9/11.

[defendandprotect]

3. kick

[Soylent Brice]

4. K&R

[slipslidingaway]

5. #6 - now #5 n/t

[defendandprotect]

6. k i c k

[defendandprotect]

7. Again we see OBAMA and courts siding on hiding information . . .

[defendandprotect]

8. kick

[ControlledDemolition]

9. Kick. (Too late to R.) My view is that the Saudis are compliant patsies.

Perhaps some time in the future they will become part of a 'limited hangout'.

What I find very surprising is that Condi Rice sometime before leaving office signed a nuclear co-operation agreement with The Saudi Government. Surely, if Iran has enough oil and gas for its own domestic purposes and doesn't need nuclear power, the Saudis don't need nuclear power either. Furthermore, as far as I know, no Iranian took up a box cutter in anger against America on 911.