Why a Philly firm wants the Saudis sued

Of all the tantalizing strands in the now declassified report on the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks is the testimony of an FBI agent that a suspected actor in the plot had many contacts with the head of air traffic control in Saudi Arabia.

The implication: What better way to suss out weaknesses of the U.S. civil aviation system before the hijackings than to confer with an expert.

For years, the government of Saudi Arabia dismissed claims in a lawsuit that it had something to do with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

With the release of the long-redacted 28 pages, that argument has been put to the test.

The document, kept under wraps for 14 years, speculates that Saudi government money and employees played a role in fueling the plot, and it describes a half-dozen or more instances in which the hijackers received help from known or suspected Saudi sources in the United States that are hard to dismiss as coincidence.

This is the core premise of a lawsuit filed by Center City's Cozen O'Connor, asserting that the Saudi government financed Islamist charities that, in turn, bankrolled al-Qaeda, and that some Saudi government employees in the U.S. formed a support network for the hijackers in the months before the attacks. Two trial judges have dismissed Saudi Arabia as a defendant, and the latest decision is on appeal. The firm, meanwhile, has joined with 9/11 survivors and others to push for a bill making it easier to sue the kingdom. The Senate passed the measure unanimously on May 17, and a House vote is expected after the summer recess.

The report by the Congressional Joint Inquiry describes the information as preliminary. Much of it later could not be corroborated, and the Saudis deny any involvement.

In the end, the report's findings fall short of proving Saudi government involvement.

But a Joint Inquiry cochairman, former Sen. Bob Graham (D., Fla.), and three members of the 9/11 Commission, which did its own probe of the attacks, said the evidence raises troubling questions.

What is most striking about the document, a summary of field work by FBI agents and CIA case officers running down terrorism leads just before and after the 9/11 attacks, is the apparent conviction of investigators that something was going on.

One focus is a shadowy Saudi named Omar al-Bayoumi, who lived in the San Diego area and helped two of the 9/11 hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, get settled in Southern California in February 2000.

It was Bayoumi who was in regular contact with the senior Saudi Ministry of Defense official who oversaw the air traffic control system in Saudi Arabia.

Bayoumi "acted like a Saudi intelligence officer," an FBI field agent said in a closed hearing. "And if he was involved with the hijackers, which it looks like he was, if he signed leases, if he provided some sort of financing or payment of some sort, then I would say that there's a clear possibility that there might be a connection between Saudi intelligence and UBL [Osama bin Laden]."

Bayoumi not only helped the hijackers find an apartment, but he paid the security deposit and first month's rent while tasking an associate to assist them in obtaining driver's licenses. Others in his network helped the two search for flight schools.

Such support was likely key because the hijackers did not speak English, had never before been to the U.S., and seemed unable to cope on their own. On 9/11, Hazmi and Mihdhar boarded United Flight 77 at Washington's Dulles airport with three other hijackers. They crashed the plane into the Pentagon.

There's also evidence that al-Qaeda tested airline security before the hijackings. In a 1999 incident, two suspected terrorists from the San Diego area, Mohammed al-Qudhaeein and Hamdan al-Shawali, boarded a flight in Phoenix and peppered a flight attendant with technical questions about flight. Qudhaeein twice sought entry into the cockpit, triggering an emergency landing.

The FBI report said the two were flying to Washington, where they planned to attend a party at the Saudi Embassy, which they said had paid for their plane tickets.

None of this proves the Saudi government or elements of it threw in their lot with the hijackers. But these facts and subsequent investigations have fueled support in Congress for legislation that would make it easier for 9/11 victims and their families to sue the Saudis.

"The information in the 28 pages reinforces the belief that the 19 hijackers . . . did not act alone," Graham said. "It suggests a strong linkage between those terrorists and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Saudi charities, and other Saudi stakeholders. The American people should be concerned about these links."