Posted on 09/10/2004 4:47:17 PM PDT by Indy Pendance
The government agency that owns the World Trade Center site said Friday it intends to hold Saudi Arabia and nearly 100 other defendants liable for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people and destroyed the complex.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced that it planned to join late Friday as a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed a week ago by Cantor Fitzgerald Securities, a bond trading firm that lost two-thirds of its workers in the trade center attack.
A Port Authority spokesman said shortly before 6 p.m. that the government agency had not yet filed its papers joining the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, but that it planned to do so before midnight in an after-hours box at the court.
The Cantor Fitzgerald lawsuit named as defendants Saudi Arabia, al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden and other accused terrorists, along with financial institutions and charitable organizations that allegedly raised money for terrorism efforts.
In a statement, the Port Authority said it had "an obligation to preserve its legal options at this time" because a three-year statute of limitations was about to expire.
"We also have a responsibility to the millions of people who live and work in the region as well as to our bondholders to pursue every legal avenue to recover the losses we sustained on Sept. 11," according to the Port Authority, which lost 84 of its employees in the 2001 attacks.
The Cantor Fitzgerald lawsuit sought $7 billion in damages.
Although Saudi Arabia had been named as a defendant in similar lawsuits, the Cantor Fitzgerald action was particularly pointed in its criticism, accusing Saudi Arabia of supporting al-Qaida with money, safe houses, weapons and money laundering.
It said Saudi Arabia engaged in a pattern of racketeering as it participated directly or indirectly in al-Qaida's work through its "alter-ego" charities and relief organizations, which it funded and controlled.
Cantor Fitzgerald lost 658 of its 1,050 employees on Sept. 11, 2001, and now has offices in midtown Manhattan.
Saudi Arabia last month defended itself as a loyal ally in the fight against terrorism, citing the Sept. 11 Commission's conclusion that the Saudi government did not fund al-Qaida.
Saudi embassy spokesman Nail al-Jubeir said the ads tell Americans "these are the facts that your own independent commission has said about Saudi Arabia. You make up your mind."
The commission had also criticized Saudi Arabia, calling it "a problematic ally in combating Islamic extremism." It said Saudi-funded Islamic schools have been exploited by extremists and, while Saudi cooperation against terrorism improved after the Sept. 11 attacks, "significant problems remained."
Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of bin Laden and 15 of the 19 hijackers.
Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of militant Islam. It is a terrorist state that should be isolated by America.
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