Maloney, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, said those allegations are significant. In its final summary of the investigation, the FBI described al-Jarrah as a “controlling, guiding, and directing influence on all aspects of Sunni extremist activity in Southern California.”

The FBI examined whether Saudis who had given financial support to al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar had ties to the plotters of the attack.Īccording to the documents, al-Bayoumi was in contact with Musaid al-Jarrah, who served as director of Islamic affairs at the Saudi Embassy in Washington and who the FBI suspected “may have been trying” to bring extremists into the U.S. He had previously drawn FBI scrutiny but was never charged over his connections with the future hijackers.Īccording to the records released Wednesday, the FBI also investigated ties between al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar and people linked to the Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs, which funds mosques and efforts to promote Islam around the world.Īccording to one of the documents, the FBI studied whether al-Qaida operatives had “infiltrated” the ministry unbeknownst to the Saudi government or whether there was a “collaboration of AQ operatives and certain radical elements within the Ministry of Islamic Affairs for mutually beneficial goals.”

Brett Eagleson, whose father, Bruce, died in the World Trade Center attack, said in a statement that the details in the documents “help bolster the arguments that high-level Saudi officials aided and supported the 9/11 hijackers.”Īmong the episodes scrutinized by the FBI and recounted in the records is a February 2000 encounter at a Southern California halal restaurant between al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar and a Saudi national named Omar al-Bayoumi, who subsequently helped them lease an apartment in San Diego.

Grey mother the long dark