Supreme Court Refuses Case Linking Saudi Royalty to 9/11 Filed by Victims’ Families

NY Times | Jun 29, 2009

By ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear an appeal brought by families and insurers of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, in an effort to link the Saudi royal family to the financing of Al Qaeda and terrorism.

The decision lets stand a lower court ruling that found Saudi Arabia and members of the royal family could not be sued in American court because of a 1976 law granting sovereign immunity to foreign countries.

The Obama administration angered some victims’ families last month by supporting the Saudis’ claim to immunity, citing among other factors the significant diplomatic implications raised by the case.

Lawyers for the victims’ families had wanted the Supreme Court to resolve a split among appeals courts on the question of immunity and allow the suit to move forward based on an exception to the law for countries that sponsor terrorism. Some survivors accused the Obama administration of coddling the Saudis.

But the Supreme Court, without comment, refused to intervene in the case.

The families will still be allowed to continue with their claims in federal court against a number of Saudi financial institutions, charities and other groups that are not directly tied to the Saudi government or the royal family. Those defendants were not affected by the court’s decision not to hear the case.

“We intend to vigorously press those claims and are confident that the presentation of our evidence against those remaining defendants will lead directly back to government offices and royal palaces in Riyadh,” said Sean Carter, a lawyer with the Philadelphia law firm Cozen O’Connor, which is representing a number of insurance companies that paid billions in claims arising from the Sept. 11 attacks.

Judge defends pretrial secrecy of 9/11 documents

AP | Mar 25, 2009

By LARRY NEUMEISTER

NEW YORK (AP) — A judge said Wednesday he favors keeping Sept. 11-related documents and interviews secret until the trials for several families of victims suing the airline industry, an opinion that upset several victims’ family members.

Donald Migliori, a lawyer for families of three people who died on hijacked planes in the 2001 attacks, asked U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein to make nearly a million pages of evidence and 200 depositions public, saying there was no reason for secrecy.

Hellerstein did not rule, but he said he favored not publically disclosing evidence that had been gathered and shared with lawyers for the victims under a confidentiality agreement until a trial occurs. No trial has yet been scheduled.

He said the confidentiality agreement speeded a pretrial process that enabled more than 90 families of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks to settle their cases. Only three families have not settled.

Michael Rowe Feagley, a lawyer for the aviation defendants, said it would not be fair to make all of the pretrial evidence public now, especially since defendants had turned over so much with the understanding that it would remain confidential before trial. He said it would take “extraordinary circumstances and an extreme need for it” to force its public release.

Mike Low, the father of a flight attendant who died on one of the hijacked planes, said afterwards that he was disappointed but not surprised by Hellerstein’s position.

Low sued in spring 2003 on behalf of his daughter, Sara Low, 28, a Boston-based flight attendant who died when American Airlines Flight 11 struck the World Trade Center.

“A few days after 9/11, a veil of secrecy came down. It’s still there,” he said.

He said his main reason for not settling the case was because he wanted to make sure the public learned everything it could from the investigation of flaws in security that allowed 19 hijackers to board four planes. Two were flown into the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon and a fourth plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.

“I would go away if all the discovery and depositions that will tell us about the terrible failures and ineptitudes that led up to that day” were made public, he said.

He said he wanted to hold accountable “these people who allowed these 19 thugs on these airlines to murder my Sara and all the others.”

Migliori said he will continue to try to force the public disclosure of the depositions and documents, though he would not say what step he would take next.

“I don’t know what the defendants are trying so hard to hide,” he said.

Migliori said the public will be interested in the findings because the lawyers interviewed people no one else had spoken to and concentrated solely on how the 19 hijackers got on the planes.

He noted that Low had learned as a result of information gathered in response to his lawsuit that his daughter had acted heroically on her plane, passing along to another crew member with a phone the seat numbers of the hijackers, how they busted into the cabin and how one had claimed to be wired with a bomb.

“That’s not hero. That’s beyond hero,” he said.

September 11 families seek to lift “veil of secrecy” shrouding what happened to loved ones

Mike Low, whose daughter Sara Low was a flight attendant on Flight 11, said he was “disappointed, but not surprised” by the judge’s likely decision, considering what he called the “veil of secrecy” that has shrouded information following the attacks.

Reuters | Mar 25, 2009

September 11 families argue for security papers release

By Christine Kearney

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Families of three victims who died in the September 11 attacks argued in a federal court on Wednesday for the release of materials relating to airline security procedures in 2001.

After the attacks, more than 90 claims were filed by families against the airlines and their security contractors seeking damages and information. All but three have settled.

In Manhattan federal court on Wednesday, family members requested that more than 200 depositions and almost a million pages of documents be made public. They say the documents reveal new details about the attacks.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein did not make an immediate decision, but said he would likely rule against the families because sorting through so many documents would delay a civil trial.

“My goal is to move these cases to trial,” Hellerstein said, arguing that with a future trial “the history of what led to 9/11 may come out to some degree, or maybe it won’t.”

After the hearing, family members of victims said they would continue to seek the release of the records.

“We want the facts of that morning to come out,” said John Keating, whose mother Barbara Keating died on American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into the World Trade Center.

Mike Low, whose daughter Sara Low was a flight attendant on Flight 11, said he was “disappointed, but not surprised” by the judge’s likely decision, considering what he called the “veil of secrecy” that has shrouded information following the attacks.

He added the records would show “the terrible ineptitudes and failures that led up to 9/11 and that day. That is our goal.”

The New York Times and The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press joined the case to seek the release of the records.

A lawyer representing the airlines and security contractors, including American Airlines, a unit of AMR Corp and UAL Corp’s United Airlines, argued the documents should be released during trial.

A trial date has not yet been set.

The plaintiffs who sued the airlines decided not to participate in a special victims compensation fund set up by the U.S. Congress that disbursed $5.99 billion to 2,880 families of deceased victims of the attacks.

Global credit crisis is like 9/11, says New York Mayor Bloomberg

Mr Bloomberg speaks after being presented the Freedom of the City of London Photo: AP

The credit crisis that is sweeping global financial markets is akin to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, according to the Mayor of New York Mike Bloomberg.

Telegraph | Oct 6, 2008

By Christopher Hope, Home Affairs Editor

In a speech in London, Mr Bloomberg said that the global economy was “facing the worst confidence crisis in our lifetime”, adding that “the pain is going to be spread far and wide”.

He told an audience in the City of London: “It is going to affect anyone who wants to borrow money to buy a car or a house or to expand their business or take out a student loan.

“Millions of people are just not going to be able to do those things – and millions of people who carry a balance on their credit cards are going to see their costs go up, or their credit limits slashed.

“There’s no sugar coating this – it’s bad. And it’s only going to get worse as more and more jobs are lost.”

Mr Bloomberg said that he hoped that comparisons with the Great Depression were “grossly overstated”, especially when it came to working out what to do next.

But Mr Bloomberg, who was speaking after receiving the Freedom of the City of London, compared the severity of the crisis to the impact of the terrorist attacks on New York on 6 September 2001.

He said: “The better analogy to make – at least in terms of how we should be thinking about our next steps – might be to a terrible crisis that is far more recent: the attacks of September 11th.”

The 9/11 terrorist attacks showed that cities and countries had to work more closely together to prevent future problems, setting up early warning systems and encouraging a transparent flow of information.

Cities like London had to make their own moves to minimise the risks from a major economic shock – and not wait for national governments to do the job for them, he said.

Mr Bloomberg said that “there’s no doubt that the months ahead are going to be awfully difficult”.

He said: “It would be nice to believe that the financial crisis is only a problem for bankers – and that taxpayers shouldn’t bail them out. But that’s the same kind of wishful thinking that got us into this mess in the first place.”

Speaking at a press conference ahead of last night’s speech, Mr Bloomberg stressed that the downturn was not likely to be long term.

He said: “If it rains today I am disappointed that I cannot go out and play golf but I still think my golf game is good and that is what it is likely to be.

“We have a short term crisis that we have to address. If we don’t it could lead to something much longer.”

Related

What is the Freedom of the City of London Award?

Historically, the City Freeman could:

• vote in Parliamentary elections

• vote in Civic elections

• be exempt from all tolls payable anywhere in the city.

• be exempt from market tolls payable anywhere in the country

• be exempt from naval impressment

• enjoy certain legal privileges with respect to being tried and imprisoned.

List of Honorary Freemen of the City of London

FBI Prevents Agents from Telling ‘Truth’ About 9/11 on PBS

The FBI has blocked two of its veteran counterterrorism agents from going public with accusations that the CIA deliberately withheld crucial intelligence before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

CQ Politics | Oct 1, 2008

FBI Special Agents Mark Rossini and Douglas Miller have asked for permission to appear in an upcoming public television documentary, scheduled to air in January, on pre-9/11 rivalries between the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency.

The program is a spin-off from The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America, by acclaimed investigative reporter James Bamford, due out in a matter of days.

The FBI denied Rossini and Miller permission to participate in the book or the PBS “NOVA” documentary, which is also being written and produced by Bamford, on grounds that the FBI “doesn’t want to stir up old conflicts with the CIA,” according to multiple reliable sources.
Bamford, contacted by phone, said he could not comment because his publisher has embargoed his new book for release around Oct. 10.

The author of two other ground-breaking books on the NSA, Bamford also said his general policy is not to discuss his negotiations for interviews with intelligence agencies.

Pre-9/11 intelligence mishaps have been generally attributed to bureaucratic screw-ups — a “failure to connect the dots,” exacerbated by spy agency rivalries.

But Rossini and Miller, who were assigned to the CIA-run Counterterrorist Center during the run-up to the 9/11 attacks, are prepared to describe on camera how the CIA blocked them from sharing crucial intelligence with FBI headquarters – and then later pressured them not to tell the truth to investigators.

The first allegation is not entirely new, having been reported by author Lawrence Wright in his 2006 book, The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, among other places.

But what is new is that Rossini and Miller — who still hold sensitive jobs in the FBI, and are identified here for the first time — are prepared to say publicly that, under pressure from the CIA, they kept the full the truth from the Justice Department’s Inspector General, which looked into the FBI’s handling of pre-9/11 intelligence in 2004.

“There was pressure on people not to disclose what really happened,” said sources close to the IG investigation.

Rossini, in particular, is said to have felt threatened that the CIA would have him prosecuted for violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act if he told the IG investigators what really happened inside the CTC.

CIA officials were in the room when he and Miller, as well as a sympathetic CIA officer, were questioned.

The IG investigators showed them copies of CTC intelligence reports and e-mails.

But the FBI agents suddenly couldn’t remember details about who said what, or who reported what, to whom, about the presence of two al Qaeda agents in the U.S. prior to the 9/11 attacks,

The IG investigators were suspicious.

Indeed, their report, which used pseudonyms for the CIA and FBI agents its interviewed — Rossini and Miller were called  “Malcolm” and “Dwight,” a CIA analyst was dubbed “Eric” — hinted at a cover-up.

“When we interviewed all of the individuals involved about the CIR [Current Intelligence Report] they asserted that they recalled nothing about it,” it said

The focus of the IG was what the CIA had witheld about the movement of two al Qaeda operatives, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, from Malaysia to the U.S. in early 2000.

Full Story

Sarkozy friend forced to apologize for saying 9/11 was an inside job

Jean-Marie Bigard: “I will never speak again about the events of 11 September,” he said. “I will never express any more doubts.”

Sarkozy’s comic friend says sorry for 9/11 comments

Independent | Sep 11, 2008

By John Lichfield in Paris

France’s favourite stand-up comedian has been forced to apologise for claiming that the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US seven years ago tomorrow were an “enormous lie” orchestrated by the American government.

The allegations by Jean-Marie Bigard have caused consternation in France because the comedian – who specialises in foul-mouthed, scatological and sexist humour – is a close friend of President Nicolas Sarkozy.

On a radio show last Friday, the comedian interrupted a discussion on American politics, to say that it was “absolutely sure and certain” that the US government had stage-managed the 9/1l attacks in which 2, 896 people died.

“The two planes which crashed in a forest and on the Pentagon never existed. There never were any planes. It’s an absolutely enormous lie,” M. Bigard said.

“It was an American missile which hit the Pentagon. That’s now been proved. It was a programmed demolition.”

Asked by the presenter of the show on Europe 1 radio where he found his information, M. Bigard replied “the internet”.

In a statement to Agence France-Presse yesterday, M. Bigard said that he wanted to “apologise to everyone”.

“I will never speak again about the events of 11 September,” he said. “I will never express any more doubts.”

He stopped short, however, of saying that he accepted that his comments were untrue.

The comedian’s remarks are said to have caused embarrassment at the Elysee Palace. President Nicolas Sarkozy has gone out of his way to present himself as an Americophile politician and to distance himself from the gut anti-Americanism of a minority of the French Left and Right.

M. Bigard, unknown abroad but capable of filling large concert halls in France, is part of M. Sarkozy’s large coterie of show-business friends. There was astonishment last December when the comedian – a kind of French Bernard Manning but a devout Catholic – accompanied M. Sarkozy on an official visit to Pope Benedict in Rome.

Conspiracy theories about 9/11 remain popular among a fringe of French people. They were first publicised in 2002 by a French author, Thierry Meyssan, in a book which was widely rubbished by the mainstream French press.

Comments by the actress Marion Cotillard, giving credence to the conspiracy theories, caused fury in the United States in January. The comments, made by Mme Cotillard several years ago, were unearthed after she won an Oscar for the Edith Piaf bio-pic, “Vie en Rose”.

A Canadian conspiracy movie about 9/11, “Loose Change”, has attracted more than 100,000 viewers on the French internet video site “Dailymotion” in recent weeks. The highly selective evidence presented in the movie appears to have been the basis of the remarks by M. Bigard.

Russian Poll: 84% Say Truth About 9/11 Being Deliberately Hidden

Infowars.net | Sep 12, 2008

By Steve Watson

A new poll from a major Russian news outlet reveals that 84% believe that the truth behind the 9/11 attacks is being deliberately hidden by the U.S. government.

At time of writing, the poll on the Russia Today website indicates that only 16% of readers feel that the 9/11 Commission report represents the full extent of the evidence as to who carried out the attacks over seven years ago.

The 84% figure mirrors almost exactly that of similar polls conducted in 2006 and 2004.

The poll comes on the heels of a survey conducted across 17 countries by WorldPublicOpinion.org that revealed less than half of those surveyed believe Al-Qaeda was behind 9/11, with a full 15 per cent believing that the terrorist outrage was directly perpetrated by the U.S. government.

A recent New York Times article also covered the fact that it has become conventional wisdom across the middle east that the official 9/11 story is a fraud.

Russia Today, one of Russia’s primary news channels also today features a balanced article and video report documenting the activities of the 9/11 truth movement in New York yesterday.

We Are Change’s Luke Rudkowski, and Infowars reporter Jason Bermas have joined hundreds of other activists in promoting the 9/11 truth movement and raising awareness and much needed aid for sick first responders on the seventh anniversary of the atrocities. The events in New York continue today.

The 9/11 truth movement has received much attention in Russia throughout the week with Russian State TV today set to broadcast a feature length documentary that questions the official version of events along with a pre-recorded studio debate on the matter.

Up to 30 million Russians will see Giulietto Chiesa’s ZERO, which covers some of the pertinent unanswered questions and inconsistencies surrounding the received reality of 9/11.

The figures that consistently emerge from the now voluminous polls, surveys and reports regarding 9/11 from all over the globe represent a blow to debunkers who have attempted to argue that skepticism towards the official 9/11 story is a radical fringe belief.

In reality, it is now beyond any doubt that a majority of people believe an explanation other than the official story or at least have suspicions about the official version.

Next US terror attack ‘could be by white Americans or Europeans’

US intelligence officials increasingly fear that the next terror attack on the United States will be carried out by white Americans or Europeans.

Telegraph | Sep 10, 2008

By Tom Leonard in New York

As Barack Obama and John McCain head to New York’s Ground Zero seven years after 19 Middle-Eastern hijackers brought devastation to the US mainland, counter-terrorism experts believe that any future attack will be made by terrorists with an “American face”.

They point to reports of white faces in terrorism training camps in Pakistan – the so-called “white men of Waziristan”, a reference to the remote tribal area where both al-Qaeda and the Taliban have bases.

Experts believe that dozens of westerners have undergone such training as their leaders try to recruit non-Middle Eastern Asians, particularly ethnic Caucasians, who are less likely to attract the attention of security and law enforcement agencies.

Al-Qaeda’s recent decision to put out videos in English and a similar change on extremist “jihadi” websites have also been cited of evidence of a new strategy to find recruits who are less likely to attract the attention of security and law enforcement agencies.

Such concerns were sharpened last week after the arrest of three Germans over an alleged plot to destroy a club used by US servicemen.

Two of the three were white, ethnic Germans and all had allegedly been trained in camps in Waziristan.

“There is no bigger worry for the US counter-terrorism community than young Caucasian men who have turned to al-Qaeda,” Roger Cressey, a former National Security Council official in the Clinton and Bush administrations, told the US news network MSNBC.

Terrorism experts say such a threat has been known about even before the arrest of Richard Reid, the British shoe bomber. However, it was not until three weeks ago that a US official explicitly admitted that the government knew of such people being trained in significant numbers.

In a little reported speech, Ted Gistaro, the US national intelligence officer for transnational threats, said that al-Qaeda was training and “positioning” its operatives for attacks in the West, probably including the US.

He added: “These operatives include North American and European citizens, and legal residents with passports that allow them to travel to the United States without a US visa.”

Mr Cressey, the council’s director for transnational threats at the time of 9/11, said that President Bush last month hosted a joint meeting of the NSC and the Homeland Security Council to discuss current threats.

The training of the type of people identified by Mr Gistaro was “the single biggest concern” at the meeting because “they can’t be tracked and they’re not in anyone’s database,” said Mr Cressey.

Prof Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University, said that the Western al-Qaeda recruits probably “run into the dozens” and did not need to be white to be useful to the terrorist group.

“Europe provides a potentially large pool from which al-Qaeda can draw. It’s hard to put a figure on them but it’s certainly beyond the ones and twos,” he said.

“The group’s having to find new ways to penetrate our defences. So, in a sense, this is a consequence of our own success.”

Last month, the Homeland Security Department announced a plan to require visitors from 27 friendly countries, including Britain, to register online at least three days before flying to the US to allow more time for terrorism checks.

In Manhattan today, Mr McCain and Mr Obama have agreed to help keep the focus on remembering 9/11 rather than the election when they attend the ceremonial reading of victims’ names.

Detailed designs for a 47,500-sq ft pavilion for a Sept 11 museum at the World Trade Centre site were unveiled yesterday. The three-storey glass and steel building was inspired by the Twin Towers.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, Michael Bloomberg, New York’s mayor, said there should be “no more excuses, no more delays” on completing a memorial by the 10th anniversary of the attacks.

Progress on redeveloping the WTC site had been “frustratingly slow”, in large part because of administrative bureaucracy, he said.

Poll: No World Consensus As To Who Was Behind 9/11

Reuters | Sep 10, 2008

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, there is no consensus outside the United States that Islamist militants from al Qaeda were responsible, according to an international poll published Wednesday.

The survey of 16,063 people in 17 nations found majorities in only nine countries believe al Qaeda was behind the attacks on New York and Washington that killed about 3,000 people in 2001.

U.S. officials squarely blame al Qaeda, whose leader Osama bin Laden has boasted of organizing the suicide attacks by his followers using hijacked commercial airliners.

On average, 46 percent of those surveyed said al Qaeda was responsible, 15 percent said the U.S. government, 7 percent said Israel and 7 percent said some other perpetrator. One in four people said they did not know who was behind the attacks.

The poll was conducted by WorldPublicOpinion.org, a collaborative project of research centers in various countries managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland in the United States.

In Europe, al Qaeda was cited by 56 percent of Britons and Italians, 63 percent of French and 64 percent of Germans. The U.S. government was to blame, according to 23 percent of Germans and 15 percent of Italians.

Respondents in the Middle East were especially likely to name a perpetrator other than al Qaeda, the poll found.

Israel was behind the attacks, said 43 percent of people in Egypt, 31 percent in Jordan and 19 percent in the Palestinian Territories. The U.S. government was blamed by 36 percent of Turks and 27 percent of Palestinians.

In Mexico, 30 percent cited the U.S. government and 33 percent named al Qaeda.

The only countries with overwhelming majorities blaming al Qaeda were Kenya with 77 percent and Nigeria with 71 percent.

Interviews were conducted in China, Indonesia, Nigeria, Russia, Egypt, France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Mexico, the Palestinian Territories, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey and Ukraine.

The poll, taken between July 15 and Aug. 31, had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 to 4 percent.

(Reporting by JoAnne Allen; Editing by John O’Callaghan)

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French president Sarkozy’s showbiz friend says 9/11 was an inside job

Jean-Marie Bigard as 007. Sarkozy took him to meet the Pope last year.

One of France’s most successful stand-up comedians and a close friend of President Nicolas Sarkozy has sparked outrage by becoming the latest French star to question the official account of the September 11 attacks.

Telegraph | Sep 9, 2008

French President Nicolas Sarkozy friend says 9/11 was a lie

By Henry Samuel in Paris

In an embarrassment to the French President, and with just two days to go before the seventh anniversary of the deadly terrorist strikes, Jean-Marie Bigard – a member of Mr Sarkozy’s inner circle of showbiz friends – said the official version was a “lie”.

“We are now absolutely certain that these two planes – the one that supposedly fell into a forest (flight 93 in Pennsylvania) and onto the Pentagon don’t exist… those planes are still flying.

“It’s an enormous lie,” he told Europe 1 radio.

“It’s an American missile that hit the Pentagon, they provoked it themselves, they killed fellow Americans.

“Usually one learns of these things 30 years afterwards. We know it now,” he went on.

Mr Bigard, who has staged shows to a full house in Paris’ football stadium, le Stade de France, added: “We are beginning to seriously consider that neither Ben Laden nor al Qaeda were responsible for September 11.”

He cited the controversial 2002 bestseller L’Effroyable Imposture (The Big Lie) by Frenchman Thierry Meyssan, which claimed the Pentagon crash was a “fake”, as well as the hit internet conspiracy film Loose Change.

His comments were condemned as “grotesque” by former French foreign minister Hubert Védrine. “There will always be people who believe that things are being hidden from them, that everything is being hidden from them,” he said.

Europe 1 has issued an apology but Mr Bigard said he stood by his words. The crude and scatological comic, whose humour travels poorly, was one of several celebrity friends Mr Sarkozy took with him to meet the Pope late last year, as he is a devout Catholic.

He is the second French star to accuse America of fabricating the 9/11 attacks.

In March, the Oscar-winning French actress Marion Cotillard angered Americans with a similar conspiracy theory on a chat show.

The 32-year-old, who won a BAFTA award for her portrayal of Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose, had said that the US regularly lied about major events, up to and including the terrorist attacks on New York.

“I think we’re lied to about a number of things,” he said, even claiming the Americans had destroyed the Twin Towers themselves because they were an outdated “money sucker”.

Expanding her conspiracy theory, Miss Cotillard said it would be “a lot more expensive” to rebuild the towers “which is why they were destroyed,” with the loss of thousands of American lives.

She later was forced into an embarrassing climb-down, with her lawyer saying she “never intended to contest nor question the attacks of September 11, 2001,” and that her remarks were taken out of context.

“It is almost impossible to fight against this phenomenon,” conspiracy theory specialist Pascal Froissart told Le Parisien. “Because the fact of denying it spreads the rumour even further.”