FBI declassifies secret docs on Saudi role in 9/11 attacks
Falls well short of proof that victims’ families suing Saudi Arabia had hoped for
The FBI released a newly declassified 16-page document that fortified suspicions of official Saudi involvement with the hijackers in the September 11, 2001 attacks, but it fell well short of proof that victims’ families suing Saudi Arabia had hoped for.
The document describes contacts the hijackers had with Saudi associates in the US but offers no evidence the Saudi government was complicit in the plot.
The document, released on the 20th anniversary of the attacks, is the first investigative record to be disclosed since President Joe Biden ordered a declassification review of materials that for years have remained out of public view.
Biden had encountered pressure in recent weeks from victims’ families, who have long sought the records as they pursue a lawsuit in New York alleging that senior Saudi officials were complicit in the attacks.
The Saudi government has long denied any involvement. The Saudi Embassy in Washington said on Wednesday that it supported the full declassification of all records as a way to “end the baseless allegations against the Kingdom once and for all.”
The embassy said that any allegation that Saudi Arabia was complicit was “categorically false.”
Biden last week ordered the Justice Department and other agencies to conduct a declassification review of investigative documents and release what they can over the next six months.