Saudi Arabia is facing a renewed $6 billion lawsuit by dozens of insurers seeking to hold it responsible for business and property damage caused by the September 11, 2001 attacks.
On Thursday, the lawsuit filed in the US District Court in Manhattan is the latest effort to hold Saudi Arabia liable for the attacks.
Other lawsuits include those filed on Monday by families of about 800 attack victims, as well as the 1,500 injured people after responding to the New York attack.
Insurers, including Liberty Mutual, Safeco, Wausau and many Lloyd’s syndicates, accused Saudi Arabia for providing funding and other material support to al-Qaeda terrorists, who they said, carried out the attacks.
US President Donald Trump had also said that he would allow families of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia in America.
Until last month, the insurers had been appealing dismissal of their case by U.S. District Judge George Daniels in Manhattan, who had overseen many September 11 lawsuits, in 2015.
In September, the US Congress made an effort to override then-president Barack Obama’s veto of Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), which clears the path to sue Riyadh for the 9/11 attacks that killed 3,000 people and destroyed some $10 billion in property.
But the appeal was vacated after Saudi Arabia, the insurers and other plaintiffs agreed in a joint court filing that JASTA “was intended to apply” to their cases, and that Daniels should review its impact.
Recently, veterans have said they have been tricked into taking Saudi-funded luxury trips to Washington in order to lobby lawmakers in Congress to scrap the JASTA, according to the New York Post.
Source: Press TV
