Relatives of the victims of the September 11th, 2001 attacks on the US have moved a step closer to being able to sue Saudi Arabia in American courts after the US Senate passed a Bill permitting citizens to sue foreign countries.
The passage of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act sets up a fight between the Obama administration and a Republican-controlled Congress.
President Barack Obama has threatened to veto the legislation amid concerns about retaliation from Saudi Arabia, a key Middle Eastern ally, as well as the "unintended consequences" of changing sovereign immunity under international law.
The Saudis have warned that they would dump hundreds of billions of dollars in US government bonds and assets to avoid them being frozen in legal actions by the 9/11 families over any role Saudi Arabia played in the attacks.
Relatives of victims have long suspected that government employees in Riyadh helped some of the hijackers who crashed four planes in New York City, Washington, DC and Pennsylvania in the terror attacks nearly 15 years ago, killing nearly 3,000 people.
Fifteen of the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia.
Supporting hijackers
The suspicions have been substantiated further by
John Lehman
, a Republican who served as navy secretary in Ronald Reagan’s administration and was a former member of the 9/11 commission, which investigated the attacks in 2004.
Mr Lehman told the Guardian that there was "an awful lot of participation by Saudi individuals in supporting the hijackers and some of those people worked in the Saudi government".
Mr Obama is considering whether to declassify a 28-page section of a 2002 congressional inquiry report on the attacks, which the George W Bush administration ordered to be kept secret.
The section is believed to look at possible connections between the hijackers and Saudis in the US.
The later 9/11 commission found no evidence that the Saudi government “as an institution” or senior Saudi officials funded al-Qaeda or the hijackers.
9/11 relatives have attempted to sue members of the Saudi royal family for allegedly funding terrorism. Action has been largely blocked because of a 1976 law that shields foreign countries with certain immunity from legal actions in the US courts.
The Senate-passed Bill could potentially lift that legal protection.
The House of Representatives has yet to act on the legislation, which was sponsored by Republican senator John Cornyn of Texas and Democrat senator Chuck Schumer of New York.
If passed, the Bill will be sent to Mr Obama, who will likely veto it.
Republican senators Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Senate subcommittee that controls foreign aid, and John McCain, chairman of the Senate armed services committee, have expressed concerns about a potential Saudi backlash over the Bill.
Mr Cornyn and Mr Schumer rejected concerns that the law would further strain relations with an important US ally in the volatile Middle East.
“I do believe that there’s going to be some sabre-rattling, some threats, but I think that they are hollow,” Mr Cornyn said.
– (Additional reporting: Associated Press)
