WASHINGTON, Aug. 18 (UPI) -- The trillion-dollar lawsuit filed last week against alleged backers in Saudi Arabia and the Sudan of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks may give Americans the fullest picture they will ever receive of who planned, financed and carried out the most horrendous attack on the continental United States in the nation's history.
Last week a group of nationally famous U.S. lawyers filed a 258-page civil lawsuit in Alexandria, Va., charging members of the Saudi Arabian royal family, the Republic of Sudan and over 90 other individuals, banks, and charitable organizations with complicity in the killing of people in the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and aboard four hijacked airliners. The suit was filed on behalf of family members of some 900 of the people who died in the attacks.
Some plaintiffs were listed under the name "Doe," because some families feared retribution.
Allan Gerson, one of the lawyers, told reporters, "This will be the trial of the century. Saudi Arabia and others have been involved in a protection racket for many years. The function of the lawsuit is to expose this and to seek damages, not only for its own sake, but to serve as a deterrent."
Now, only a few weeks before the first anniversary of the attacks, if this suit reaches a U.S. court, the testimony may be the most complete and revealing that Americans will hear. Though the Department of Justice has made public some information on the attacks, the only defendant in the case who may face trial in the U.S. is Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called "20th hijacker" who is under indictment in Alexandria. The U.S. government accepted a guilty plea from John Walker Lindh, the so-called American Taliban, that ended the prospects of a trial and the Bush administration has made arrangements for secret military tribunals to try others.
The Saudi suit is part of a trend in recent years to file civil lawsuits against the backers of terrorism to cut into the terrorists' financial base and to deter people who secretly support terrorists. Gerson was part of a legal group that successfully sued the Libyan government on behalf of the victims of Pan Am 103, the holiday-bound Boeing 747 that was destroyed by a bomb hidden aboard on orders of Libyan intelligence.
There are also suits in the U.S. against several other countries and individuals who may have backed the Sept. 11 attacks, and recently a major suit was filed in England against backers of an Irish Republican Army bombing that killed 29.
Matt Sellitto, one of the plaintiffs, whose 23-year-old son Matthew died in the World Trade Center, told reporters: "My son was murdered because he was living the American dream. We have to take every means to stop this thing."
If the suit is successful in a U.S. court, assets held by individuals, banks and governments could be attached in the United States. Saudi Arabian investment in the United States is estimated to be $750 billion. None of the plaintiffs gathered at the news conference said they were suing for monetary gain and there is no prohibition on the plaintiffs applying for and receiving assistance under the Victim's Compensation Fund.
Response from the defendants in the case has been trickling in because the defendants are so widespread. News reports said several of the banks named in the suit denied any connection with terrorism. The suit is the latest in a series of anti-Saudi incidents in Washington. In July, an analyst for a prominent defense think tank told the Defense Department Advisory Board that the Saudis are "active at every level of the terror chain, from planners to financiers, from cadre to foot soldiers, from ideologist to cheerleader." Later, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld deplored the briefing, saying it was the analyst's opinion and no senior Pentagon officials attended.
Several Saudi newspapers said over the weekend that Saudi Arabia should reconsider its strategic alliance with the United States.
Ron Motley, who is famous for victories on behalf of victims of asbestos poisoning and cigarette smoking, told United Press International that the Bush administration is not in favor of the suit. It certainly has come at a ticklish time for Bush and the Saudis. The president sought Saudi assistance in working out a Middle East peace settlement and he wants fly-over rights if he chooses to launch an attack at Iraq, but many within the administration believe what the suit charges, that Saudi Arabia was supportive of the attacks on the United States.
"The actions of certain members of the Saudi royal family are implicated in the Sept. 11 attacks," the suit charges, "and are directly at issue in this case."
The suit said: "Royal denials notwithstanding, Saudi money has for years been funneled to encourage radical anti-Americanism as well as to fund the al Qaida terrorists. Saudi Arabian money has financed terror while its citizens have promoted and executed it. It is no coincidence that immediately following the Sept. 11 attacks, members of the bin Laden family were whisked away from the United States to Saudi Arabia, at a time when commercial aviation was shut down."
The lawsuit traces bin Laden and al Qaida in perhaps the most organized form of any court document, picking up bin Laden's role in Afghanistan and bringing together court testimony from the 1998 embassy bombing case and other trials here and abroad as well as government reports.
Utilizing unpublished French intelligence reports, it charges that after bin Laden organized the bombing in the Saudi capital of the Khobar towers, where U.S. troops were housed, a group of Saudis met in Paris and agreed to pay bin Laden not to conduct any more terrorism in the kingdom.
Most of the financial institutions and charities mentioned in the suit have been identified before, but the complaint brought out new details of Saudi royal family roles in charities that allegedly support terrorism and the alleged actions of the government of Sudan.
