Senate bill would allow suits against Saudi Arabia for 9/11

After months of intense advocacy by families of victims of the 9/11 attacks and aggressive pushback from the Obama administration, the U.S. Senate is nearing a vote on a bill that would broaden the basis for suing Saudi Arabia for its alleged role in the plot.

The bill has been pushed by 9/11 survivors and their families and by insurers that paid out tens of billions of dollars as a result of the hijackings and the losses at ground zero. It is intended to bolster a 13-year-old lawsuit against the Saudi kingdom alleging that government-supported Islamist charities helped finance the 9/11 attackers.

The Center City law firm Cozen O'Connor has taken a lead role in the litigation and in pushing for enactment of the bill.

A similar bill was passed unanimously by the Senate in December of 2014, only to die in the House.

The stakes have grown enormously since then, with the Saudi government in talks with the Obama administration in March, warning it would dispose of $750 billion of its assets in the United States if Congress passes the bill.

Pressure is also growing on the government to release 28 pages of Congress' 9/11 report that were withheld and could implicate Saudi charities and citizens.

For the Saudis, more than national pride is at stake. If the plaintiffs ever collect on their suit, the Saudis could be exposed to $100 billion or more in damages.

The administration has been lobbying members of the Senate to block the measure, called the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, causing anger and frustration among the families of 9/11 victims.

Sponsors say that pressure may yet stall the bill. The measure also faces uncertain prospects in the House, with Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) stopping short of endorsing the measure.

"We are greatly distressed to hear that senior administration officials are engaged in a whispering campaign to urge that Congress not pass" the bill, a dozen prominent 9/11 family members wrote on April 18 to President Obama before his visit to Saudi Arabia.

The letter, signed by Christine O'Neill, wife of John O'Neill, a top FBI counterterrorism official who died in the World Trade Center, said it was not right for the U.S. "to succumb to the demands of a foreign government."

She lives near Atlantic City.

Reaction on Capitol Hill was even more pointed. Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas), a lead sponsor of the bill with Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.), alleged that the administration was opposing the measure to mollify Saudi officials upset over a perceived U.S. tilt to Iran.

American victims "should be able to seek justice from people who do fund that terrorist attack," Cornyn said on the Senate floor. But "the administration has worked to undercut our progress on this legislation at every turn."

In 2003, the Cozen firm sued Saudi Arabia for dozens of insurers alleging that Saudi Arabia supported Islamist charities that funneled money and equipment to al-Qaeda as it evolved into a terrorist group with global reach.

Almost from the day of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Saudi Arabia has been the focus of scrutiny because 15 of the 19 hijackers were from the kingdom.

Among the evidence the suit cites is a Treasury Department decision to designate branches of a Saudi government-funded charity, the International Islamic Relief Organization, as a terrorism financier for helping fund al-Qaeda. The group's Philippines director for a time was Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law.

The suit also cites U.S. intelligence findings that people close to another Islamist charity, the al-Haramain Foundation, may have played a role in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa.

In 2005, federal district court Judge Richard C. Casey dismissed Saudi Arabia as a defendant, finding that it was protected from suits by the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.

A series of appeals ensued and in 2013, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan reinstated Saudi Arabia as a defendant, saying that an exception in the law let the lawsuit proceed.

The case took another twist last year when Saudi Arabia was once again dismissed as a defendant, this time by a federal District Court judge, George Daniels, who found that because the acts leading to the 9/11 attacks occurred outside the U.S., American courts lacked jurisdiction.

The bill being supported by the families and the Cozen firm seeks to specify that foreign governments can be sued for terrorism outside the U.S.

Sponsors of the measure, which has 23 Senate co-sponsors, including Chris Coons (D., Del.), say they are hopeful for a vote in a few weeks as final language is drafted. But the Obama administration is trying hard to prevent that. The president argued that expanding the basis for American citizens to sue foreign states would expose the U.S. to retaliatory legal action overseas.

But the families' lawyers say that is an empty argument because U.S. law has always permitted such suits. The bill would only make that right much clearer, they say.

"We have had a sovereign immunity statute that creates broad exceptions for years, and we have never seen the kind of retaliatory practice that they have suggested," said Sean Carter, Cozen's lead litigator on the case.

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