A U.S. judge on Tuesday dismissed claims against Saudi Arabia by families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, just over 14 years after the strikes on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon.
U.S. District Judge George Daniels in Manhattan said Saudi Arabia “had sovereign immunity from damage claims by families of nearly 3,000 people killed in the attacks, and from insurers that covered losses suffered by building owners and businesses.”
“The allegations in the complaint alone do not provide this court with a basis to assert jurisdiction over defendants,” Daniels wrote, according to Reuters. The judge wrote that evidence would have to show that Saudi Arabia or its officials took actions to support the terrorist plot, according to the AP.
Crown Prince Naif visits the site of an ISIS bombing at a mosque in Asir.
Since the attacks took place, Saudi Arabia has been a leading partner to the U.S. in combating terrorism and extremism, and has faced its own internal and external threats by Al-Qaeda and affiliated groups. The Kingdom’s Minister of Interior and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef has run Saudi Arabia’s counter-terrorism efforts since the death of his father and then-Minister in 2012, after Ahmed Bin Abdulaziz al-Saud served for just under 5 months in the post.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef has had warm relations with the United States and its military and counter-terrorism officials and has overseen a long fight against extremist threats to Saudi Arabia and its allies, and was himself the target of four assassination attempts. One of those attempts, in 2009, was an attempted suicide bombing in Mohammed bin Naif’s palace after he invited Abdullah Hassan Al Asiri, a suicide bomber linked to Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, back to turn himself in as part of the country’s terrorist rehabilitation program.
Mohammed bin Naif was only slightly injured in the attack.
