Saudi Arabia funded a ‘dry run’ for the 9/11 attacks on a domestic flight two years before New York atrocity, lawsuit claims
THE Saudi Arabian embassy in the US may have funded a “dry run” of the horrific 9/11 attacks, according to a lawsuit filed against the country.
The shocking claims seem to add weight to allegations Riyadh had a hand in the terrorist attacks which claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 people 16 years ago today.
The the embassy might have used two of its employees for the so-called trial run before a dozen hijackers flew two planes into the Twin Towers in 2001.
The complaint claims the Saudi Government paid two men posing as students to take a flight from Phoenix to Washington and test out flight deck security two years earlier.
Sean Carter, lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, said, "We've long asserted that there were longstanding and close relationships between al-Qaeda and the religious components of the Saudi government."
The legal case has been filed on behalf of 1,400 family members of the victims.
The Saudis have long denied any links to the terrorists and lawyers representing the government have filed motions to dismiss the latest claims.
A total of 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi.
A new change in US law now allows survivors and relatives of victims to sue foreign governments in US federal courts.
According to the documents and as reported by the Post, the class action argues “a pattern of both financial and operational support” from the Saudi government helped the hijackers before the attacks.
FBI documents, submitted as evidence, claimed that the two Saudi nationals who came to the US, Mohammed al-Qudhaeein and Hamdan al-Shalawi, were really government "agents".
The documents claimed the men trained in Afghanistan with a number of other al-Qaeda operatives that participated the 9/11 attacks.
In November 1999 they are said to have boarded an America West flight to Washington, and tried to access the cockpit several times.
They also allegedly asked the flight attendants “technical questions” sparking suspicion.
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Qudhaeein reportedly asked staff where the bathroom was and then tried to enter the cockpit.
The pilots made an emergency landing in Ohio and the two men were released after an FBI interrogation.
The pair's plane tickets were reportedly paid for by the Saudi Embassy, according to the legal claims.
They also reportedly attended a function in Washington, organised by the Saudi embassy in association with the Institute for Islamic and Arabic Sciences in America, which employed late al-Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki as a lecturer.
He later helped the hijackers to get housing and ID when they arrived in early 2000.
The allegations in the class action lawsuit are based on almost 5,000 pages of evidence.