FBI makes public long-secret memo on 9/11 investigation

Members of the FBI arrive for a private ceremony near the One World Trade Center and 9/11 Memorial ahead of the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., September 10, 2021. (REUTERS)
Members of the FBI arrive for a private ceremony near the One World Trade Center and 9/11 Memorial ahead of the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., September 10, 2021. (REUTERS)

Summary

  • New details are revealed about probe into whether individuals linked to the Saudi government assisted the hijackers

The Federal Bureau of Investigation on Saturday made public a long-secret memo detailing evidence agents compiled in 2016 as they examined allegations of official Saudi involvement in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

President Biden recently ordered the Justice Department to review and possibly release the memo by Saturday’s 20-year anniversary of the attacks as part of a broader order to declassify documents.

The April 2016 internal 16-page FBI memo summarized the status of a then-active investigation into whether several people linked to the Saudi government assisted the hijackers in California in finding housing, making travel arrangements and other matters as part of the plot. Saudi Arabia has denied any complicity or involvement.

In the memo, FBI agents described their analysis of phone records that appeared to connect some of the subjects of the investigation to an associate of Osama bin Laden or other eventual detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

The memo also showed a flurry of phone contacts around the arrival of two of the hijackers in Los Angeles. It also described how some witnesses contradicted the claims by some of the subjects of the investigation, who had denied knowledge of the plot. Some of the names and other information in the memo were redacted.

One of the men under investigation at the time, Fahad al-Thumairy, had told the FBI he had a chance encounter with the two hijackers in a restaurant in Los Angeles, recognized their accents and struck up a conversation. Another witness told the FBI, according to the memo, that Mr. al-Thumairy had come into the restaurant, positioned himself by the front window and approached the two hijackers before he could have heard them speak.

Another Saudi man under investigation at the time, Omar al-Bayoumi, had checked into a Culver City, Calif., hotel a month before the hijackers’ arrival, with a man whose phone numbers were linked to a spiritual adviser to a bin Laden lieutenant, the memo said. Both men had relationships with the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles, according to previously released documents and the memo. The status and whereabouts of the men couldn’t be ascertained, and they couldn’t be reached for comment.

The families of 9/11 victims have long sought the memo and other documents from the FBI as part of their lawsuit, filed in federal court in Manhattan, alleging that the Saudi government helped to coordinate the attacks.

In a statement, 9/11 Families United, a group representing the victims’ families, said the release of the memo “puts to bed any doubts about Saudi complicity in the attacks."

A representative for the Saudi Embassy in Washington couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

Attorneys for the victims’ families have argued that several Saudi men had provided support to two of the hijackers in a “highly coordinated, state-run-and-initiated covert operation," and filed affidavits in the court case written by former FBI officials in recent years supporting that contention.

The agency has previously declined to disclose the documents, citing national-security interests.

The Trump administration declined to disclose the documents on the same grounds. But the Justice Department disclosed in August that the FBI had recently closed that investigation and would consider releasing some of the documents.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed when terrorists crashed hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon and, after passengers fought back, a Pennsylvania field. Most of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.

Earlier this month Mr. Biden ordered the Justice Department to consider declassifying a range of materials contained in the FBI’s case files. He ordered Attorney General Merrick Garland to complete a declassification review of the April 2016 FBI memo by Sept. 11. He gave Mr. Garland additional time to review the other documents.

A federal judge on Friday approved a request from federal prosecutors to allow the Justice Department to disclose publicly certain grand-jury materials discussed in the April 2016 memo.

The U.S. 9/11 Commission said in its 2004 report that it didn’t find evidence that one of the men allegedly linked to the Saudi government, Mr. al-Thumairy, had provided assistance to the hijackers. That report also said the commission had seen “no credible evidence" that Mr. al-Bayoumi “believed in violent extremism or knowingly aided extremist groups." Much of the FBI’s investigation into the issue came after the report was completed.

In 2015, the commission revisited the issue and assessed more-recent evidence regarding the two men. It said it didn’t find the new information changed the original findings, but noted there was an “ongoing internal debate" within the FBI about the potential significance of some of the evidence. At the time, the commission encouraged FBI leadership to continue the investigation.

This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text

 

 

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