Washington, May 18: The US Senate on Tuesday unanimously passed a bill that would permit US courts to take action against the Saudi leadership and hold them legally liable for any role in the 9/11 attacks, the New York Times reported.
The bill will now be brought to the White House where the Obama administration has threatened to veto the legislation.
Saudi Arabia has warned that it would be forced to sell off hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of American assets before the proposed legislation would put them in danger of being frozen by US courts, although economists say that the move would be difficult to execute and would cripple the kingdom's economy.
If adopted, this law would allow families of victims of 11 September 2001 to seek compensation from the Saudi government. The suspected involvement of Saudi Arabia in the attacks was never proven but 15 of the 19 plane hijackers were Saudi nationals. The Kingdom has also denied responsibility for the 2001 attacks.
In December 2002, a year after the attacks, the House and Senate committees on intelligence published a report into the US investigation into them. But the then president, George W. Bush, ordered that 28 pages of the report be classified to protect the methods and identities of US intelligence sources.
The 28 pages are thought to include a claim that Princess Haifa, the wife of then Saudi ambassador Prince Bandar, sent money to the hijackers.
Earlier this year, the theory of Saudi involvement was revisited when a former operative for al-Qaida, a man described as the 20th 9/11 hijacker, described prominent members of Saudi Arabia's royal family as major donors to the terrorist network in the late 1990s,
In response, the Saudi Embassy said that the national September 11 commission in 2004 had already rejected allegations that the Saudi government or Saudi officials had funded al Qaida.
Bill will be vetoed?
Meanwhile, the White House said that it had “serious concerns” about a bill the US Senate passed earlier in the day that would allow survivors and relatives of those killed in the Sept. 11 attacks to sue to seek damages from the Saudi government.
“Given the concerns that we have expressed, it's difficult to imagine the president signing this legislation,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters.
The “Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act,” or JASTA, passed the Senate by unanimous voice vote. It must next be taken up by the US House of Representatives, where no vote has yet been scheduled.
If it became law, JASTA would remove the sovereign immunity, preventing lawsuits against governments, for countries found to be involved in terrorist attacks on US soil. It would allow survivors of the attacks, and relatives of those killed in the attacks, to seek damages from other countries.
Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York, a co-sponsor, said the bill is overdue and that, because it only applies to attacks on US soil, does not risk lawsuits against the United States.
Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas, also a sponsor of the bill, said JASTA does not target the Saudis, although he alluded to a still-classified section of a report on the Sept. 11 attacks.
“We have yet to see the 28 pages that have not been yet released about the 9/11 report, and that may well be instructive,” Cornyn said at the news conference.
Other lawmakers who have seen the 28 pages have said releasing them would quiet such rumors. The Obama administration has said it opposes JASTA and that President Barack Obama would veto it. Asked if Senate Democrats would back a veto, Schumer said he would vote against Obama.
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