The families of hundreds of people killed in the 9/11 attacks are considering adding the United Arab Emirates as a defendant to a legal case against Saudi Arabia for its roles in the outrage.
Nearly 3,000 people died when hijacked airplanes crashed into New York’s World Trade Centre, the Pentagon building and a Pennsylvania field in September 2001.
Until now the attention of the victims’ families and their legal representatives has been focused on Saudi Arabia, which it is alleged helped support the attack through its alleged funding of al-Qaeda training camps and its support for the group, including weapons, funding and logistical support.
But the UAE’s alleged support for al-Qaeda has been raised in New York legal circles, leading victims’ families to discuss taking legal action before a statute of limitations on court challenges over the devastating attacks expires in January 2019.
Kristen Breitweiser, who lost her husband Ronald in the 9/11 attacks, told that the UAE is “on the radar” of victims’ families and their legal teams.
“The UAE needs some attention and our lawyers need to start delving into it in a more concerted way,” said Breitweiser, a high-profile activist and member of the “Jersey Girls”, four women from New Jersey whose husbands were killed on 9/11 and went on to campaign for a national commission of inquiry into the attack.
“I’m simply going to say this – to me, their hands don’t seem clean and I think their role in the 9/11 attacks and their connection to the hijackers bears further investigation.”
Did UAE support al-Qaeda? Dubai Islamic Bank financed 9/11 ?
In a series of interviews, relatives of 9/11 victims, including Breitweiser, and New York lawyers, pointed to the 9/11 Commission report finding as justification to add the UAE to the defendant lists in a string of court cases currently being brought against Saudi Arabia under the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (Jasta), which was passed in September 2016.
Two of the 19 hijackers who flew planes into the Pentagon and the World Trade Centre towers were from the UAE, while 15 others were Saudi.
The 9/11 Commission report, which was published in July 2004, and accompanying documents, made more than 70 mentions of the UAE and found that most of the attackers travelled through Dubai on their way to take part in the attacks.
It was found that $120,000 was transferred from attack ringleader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, now facing a military trial in Guantanamo Bay, to plot facilitator Abdul Aziz Ali in Dubai. The money was then wired to fund the hijackers in the US.
The legal focus is currently on the larger alleged role of the government of Saudi Arabia, which only moved to ban al-Qaeda in 2013, but more than 700 defendants were initially named across at least seven courts challenges: These included a number of Middle East banks, including the Dubai Islamic Bank, charities and individuals from across the Gulf.
Court documents for one case, filed in New York in December, alleged the UAE’s Dubai Islamic Bank “knowingly and purposefully provided financial services and other forms of material support to al-Qaeda… including the transfer of financial resources to an al-Qaeda operative who participated in the planning and executions of the 11 September attacks”.
Neither the Dubai Islamic Bank or the UAE embassy in London responded to request for comment from MEE over alleged links to the 9/11 attackers and funding for the tragedy.
A New York legal source, who asked not to be named as they were working on a possible legal challenge involving the UAE, said it was common knowledge that the UAE had been involved in “extensive lobbying against Jasta alongside Saudi Arabia.”
They said: “It’s also interesting that a bank from the UAE, the Dubai Islamic Bank, is a defendant in at least three of the court cases moving through the courts.”
Gordon Haberman, whose daughter Andrea Lyn Haberman was killed after American Airlines Flight 11 slammed into World Trade Centre 1, told MEE that it was “frustrating” that ties between the UAE and terrorism have not been explored thoroughly since the 9/11 Commission report was released.
He told: “The UAE was certainly a country used as a base of operations for staging and prepping the hijackers who eventually were made the ‘muscle’ men aboard the planes on 9/11.
“They were provided a safe haven in Dubai by two of the defendants in the 9/11 trial now going on in Guantanamo: Mustafa al-Hawsawi and Ali Abdul Aziz Ali.
“The banking system in the UAE was used by Hawsawi to funnel money and material support to Mohammed Atta [one of the 9/11 ringleaders] in the United States. Most of the hijackers travelled from Dubai… on their way to the US and to take part in 9/11.”
‘Most of the hijackers travelled from Dubai… on their way to the US and to take part in 9/11’ told Gordon Hamberman, 9/11 victim’s father
Haberman added that much of the information on ties to the UAE has been in the “public domain for years” but that it was his hope that the “passage of Jasta in the US will give pause to nations, prior to their funding and facilitating terror groups and their members”.
The report also detailed how US military planners missed the chance to target Osama bin Laden at an Afghan camp in February 1999. US officials failed to launch an air strike or missile attack over fears the al-Qaeda leader was meeting with “visitors from a Gulf state”.
The 9/11 report identified these visitors as high-level UAE officials. It appears UAE officials then tipped off Bin Laden to thwart future efforts to kill him.
One family member of 9/11 attacks said : Most active families are aware of the role played by the UAE in 9/11. If we wanted to paint with the broadest brush possible we could identify other entities that provided some support to the attackers, but to get this case to the finish line it is important to focus on the entity most involved and most critical in supporting al-Qaeda.”
Alleged UAE lobbying
Discussions over expanding the legal campaign to include UAE have intensified after the UAE warned it could withdraw intelligence cooperation with the US in an attempt to block Jasta.
Leaked emails reported by The Daily Telegraph last month show how Yousef al-Otaiba, the UAE’s ambassador to the US, warned politicians that countries at risk of being sued in US courts would be “less likely to share crucial information and intelligence”.
This comes after the UAE’s foreign minister, Anwar Gargash, tweeted in September that Jasta would have “serious and enduring” repercussions.
The role played by the UAE in lobbying against Jasta was described as “alarming and extremely telling” by 9/11 families.
“Clearly, if you have done nothing wrong, then you have nothing to worry about when it comes to Jasta… So to me, learning that information sets off huge alarm bells, sort of gets the system blinking red,” said 9/11 widow Kristen Breitweiser.
Source: http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/xxx-376213863
Emirates Sponsored Terrorism 