Judge refuses to reinstate Saudi Arabia as defendant in 9/11 lawsuit

A federal district court judge, ruling in New York, on Thursday day turned down a motion by lawyers for thousands of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and commercial insurers that lost billions at ground zero that Saudi Arabia be reinstated as a defendant in their lawsuit seeking compensation.

Judge George B. Daniels said the issue had been examined by federal district court judge Richard Conway Casey in 2005, and he found no grounds for sustaining the lawsuit against Saudi Arabia.

Stephen Cozen of the Center City firm of Cozen O'Connor, which represents the commercial insurers, said that the plaintiffs lawyers planned to appeal Daniels' decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

"The claims have never been evaluated under the proper legal standard and been subject to an appropriate appeal," said Sean Carter, another Cozen O'Connor lawyer, following the decision.

But Michael Kellogg, a lawyer for the Kingdom, said the motion for reinstatement was baseless, and had already been decided on appeal.

"They got their appeal; they lost," he said during oral arguments before Daniels on Thursday. "They got their Supreme Court review, and they lost."

Cozen filed suit against Saudi Arabia, Islamist charities, terrorism financiers and others in 2003 alleging that they helped underwrite al Qaeda as it grew from a regional threat in the 1990s to a terrorist network with global reach. The Second Circuit upheld Conway's decision in 2008 and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal by Cozen and a handful of other firms pursuing the case. The plaintiffs lawyers asked late last year that Saudi Arabia and a government established charity, the Saudi High Commission, be reinstated as defendants. They based their motion on a second circuit decision expanding the basis for terrorism lawsuits against foreign governments. Daniels contended, however, that the second circuit decision did not apply in the Cozen lawsuit.

Contact Chris Mondics at 215 854 5957 or cmondics@phillynews.com.