Declassified documents: ‘Low-level’ Saudi officials had links with 9/11 network

Newly declassified documents from the US government’s probe into the 9/11 attacks shows links between low-level Saudi government officials and a support network for the al Qaeda hijackers in California.

The files, which were released by the US National Archives department over the past 18 months, are part of documents of the 9/11 commission staffers and date back to 2004, according to The Guardian.

One of documents declassified offer the interview of a former Saudi diplomat, who commission member thought was a ringleader of a Saudi spy network working inside the US including providing support to at least two of the 9/11 hijackers.

The document describes in detail the interview with Fahad al-Thumairy, 32, in Saudi Arabia about his contact a Saudi in the hijackers’ support network.

It noted how Thumairy answered questions of the commission’s members calmly in the beginning but became visibly uncomfortable when he was confronted with evidence of ties to a support network for the terrorists.

The documents also detail the interview with another key witness, Osama Basnan, a leader of the Muslim community in San Diego before 9/11. According to his interrogation report, he was repeatedly “caught in lies” when asked about his relationship to Saudis in the support network and for allegedly turning over thousands of dollars, received from a Saudi princess originally intended to treat Basnan’s ailing wife. The money was given to Omar al-Bayoumi who was at the centre of the efforts to support the hijackers.

Other documents declassified showed how commission members flew to Saudi Arabia between 2003 and 2004 to confront suspected supporters of the terrorists who had hijacked and then crashed planes into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 14^th, 2016.