PRESS RELEASE

Would-Be Hijacker’s Claim About Saudis Feeds Drive to Release 28 Pages

Nov. 20, 2014 (EIRNS)—The dramatic claims by would-be hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui, that members of the Saudi royal family financed the 9/11 attacks and other terrorist activities, is feeding demands for the declassification of the 28 pages. Sometimes called "the 20th hijacker" (although, as Bob Graham said last week, the 20th hijacker was likely al-Khatani), Moussaoui was arrested a month before the Sept. 2001 attacks, and alternatively claimed, and denied, that he was part of the 9/11 plot. He pled guilty, and was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2006.

Recently, he sent letters to federal judges in New York and Oklahoma, which have just been made public in the London Daily Mail and elsewhere. The letters state that during the time he was taking flight-training lessons in Norman, Oklahoma, he met with Prince Turki al-Faisal and Princess Haifa (Turki’s sister and Prince Bandar’s wife), and he says that Turki and Princess Haifa gave money to him and other hijackers. Prince Haifa has already been identified as channelling funds to the future hijackers in San Diego prior to 9/11.

Moussaoui also mentions numerous others, including Princes Bandar, Salman, Walid bin Talal, Naif, Mohamed, and Sultan, and other financiers, banks, and organizations—most of whose names are familiar to EIR. On Oct. 21, he gave a deposition to lawyers for the 9/11 victims and insurance companies, and the lawyers have asked the court in New York to delay the proceedings in their case while the deposition is being evaluated.

Although there are serious questions about Moussaoui’s mental stability—even the organizers of 9/11 had their doubts about him—there is no question that Moussaoui was in a position to know about the Saudi role in financing al-Qaeda. He was in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Chechnya, and London during the 1990s, before coming to the U.S. to enroll in flight-training schools. But no doubt, his well-known mental problems will be used to try to discredit his claims.

Coverage of Moussaoui’s claims in CNN, Forbes, Examiner.com, and elsewhere, links his claims to the fight to declassify the 28 pages. Investors Business Daily, for example, states:

"Still, shouldn’t we resolve the still-open issue of just what the Saudis did in the run-up to the most devastating single attack on the continental U.S. in history? In particular, at a minimum, one would hope that this story adds impetus to congressional efforts to restore the 28 pages on Saudi involvement in 9/11 that were redacted from the 2002 Joint Congressional Inquiry into the 9/11 attacks."