For 23 years, the families of the victims of 9/11 have lived with the pain and anguish of that day. Nothing can assuage the hurt. There is no compensation for their loss.
That hasn't stopped 9/11 Families United from seeking justice for their loved ones. "Never Forget" is only part of the story. The families, including widows, children, and now grandchildren, want the truth. And the truth starts with forcing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to come clean about the role members of its government played in the attack.
“It’s not just one time a year to remember those that were lost or murdered that day. It’s a pledge to ensure that the truth is told,” Terry Strada, national chair of the group, told CNN. “There’s just so much more to it than just never forget them. It’s never forget what happened so we can prevent it from happening again.”
For more than 20 years, the families have sought to force the Saudi Arabian government to acknowledge its role in the attack. They sued the Kingdom in 2002 for complicity in the attack, and now it appears that a critical point in the trial has been reached. A federal judge will rule soon on whether the suit can go forward after the Saudis asked for a dismissal.
The turn of the 21st century saw the government of Saudi Arabia in tremendous turmoil with some members of the royal family openly siding with extremists like Osama bin Laden. They hated the U.S. as much as bin Laden and gave al Qaeda financial and material support.
Two Saudi nationals living in the U.S. played a huge role in facilitating the al Qaeda attack on 9/11. Fahad Al Thumairy, a Saudi diplomat stationed in the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles, is claimed to have been the primary contact for al Qaeda and the hijackers in Los Angeles, according to plaintiffs’ court filings.
Omar al-Bayoumi, a student the Kingdom sponsored to go to school in the U.S., is accused of creating the support system for two of the hijackers.
It should be noted that there is no direct evidence that Thumairy or Bayoumi knew that the future hijackers were terrorists. But both men were acting at the direction of extremists connected to the Saudi Arabian government.
Information later released by the FBI supported the plaintiffs’ claim that Bayoumi and Thumairy orchestrated the support network in Southern California for Hazmi and Mihdhar at the direction of more senior Saudi officials working with known extremists including American-born al Qaeda propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki, who was eventually killed in an American drone strike in 2011, Simpson highlighted at the hearing.
Information released recently shows that Bayoumi had contacts with Saudi intelligence that history shows us was a nest of al-Qaeda sympathizers. The Saudis were trying to portray the "student" as just a good-hearted Muslim looking to help out newcomers who didn't speak English.
The judge has to determine if the 9/11 families have a good enough case to go to trial.
Evidence mapped out by the plaintiffs’ attorneys shows that Bayoumi met with a Saudi diplomatic official at the consulate just before meeting the hijackers for the first time at a restaurant in Los Angeles two weeks after they arrived in California. Bayoumi helped facilitate the hijackers’ move from L.A. to San Diego within days of that meeting.
Attorneys for the Kingdom say Bayoumi met the hijackers that day in 2000 by chance at a halal restaurant near a well-known mosque and had only “limited contact” with Hazmi and Mihdhar after initially assisting them. The Kingdom’s attorney also said there was no evidence that Thumairy did anything to assist the men but attorneys for the 9/11 families have presented FBI findings that Thumairy tasked a mosque parishioner to pick up the hijackers from the airport and bring them to Thumairy when they first arrived in Los Angeles in mid-January 2000.
Saudi Arabia will never admit that it played a role in the 9/11 attacks. The fallout would be catastrophic diplomatically and domestically. It might topple the already rickety Saudi government.
But if the families can make their case and the court rules in their favor, it would be a tremendous victory for them and the rule of law. The court could ask the U.S. government to seize Saudi assets in the U.S. to satisfy any judgments that arise from the case. The Saudis aren't likely to pay anything.
But the precedent would have been set. And the 9/11 families would get partial justice for their efforts.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member