Court: Saudi Arabia not liable in 9/11 attacks

By Chris Mondics

INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

A federal appeals court today rejected lawsuits by victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks against Saudi Arabia and senior members of the Saudi royal family, alleging that they helped foster al-Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist groups.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, ruling in Manhattan, said Saudi Arabia and members of its royal family were protected from being sued because the State Department had not officially designated the desert kingdom as a supporter of terrorism.

....In their lawsuits, the victims alleged that over a period of a decade or more, officials of the government of Saudi Arabia had financed Islamic charities that, in turn, had become the sources of funding for Islamic terrorists, first in Afghanistan and then later in Bosnia Herzegovina and, ultimately, in the Sept. 11 attacks.

The victims offered as evidence testimony by senior U.S. Treasury and State Department officials and other U.S. government findings that the charities had become conduits for terrorist financing, beginning in the mid-1990s. U.S. officials have said that although the Saudis have taken some steps to crack down on the charities, they remained concerned that some charities continue to be sources of funding for al-Qaeda.