US lawsuits against Saudi Binladen Group for provding Material Support to “Terrorist Son” thrown out

Six September 11 lawsuits thrown out against Saudi Binladen Group
Bloomberg News – 12 January, 2012

NEW YORK – Saudi Binladen Group, Saudi Arabia’s largest construction company, which was cofounded by Osama bin Laden’s father, won the dismissal of lawsuits in which it was accused of supporting the September 11 attacks.

The US District Judge, George B Daniels, in New York, threw out six cases brought by people including relatives of those killed in the attacks.

They claimed the construction and distribution company run by bin Laden’s relatives and the company “provided material support” and financing to bin Laden as well as having maintained close ties to the Al Qaeda leader before the attacks.

The company allegedly provided significant financial support to bin Laden before he was removed as a shareholder in 1993, the plaintiffs said, “with knowledge that he was targeting the United States”, even after he was removed as a shareholder and his ties with the company were severed in 1994.

The claims “have no evidentiary support”, Mr Daniels ruled. The plaintiffs failed to show “the company maintained a financial lifeline to bin Laden”, as the lawsuits claimed.

Bin Laden, who used a family inheritance to build the Al Qaeda network that killed almost 3,000 people in the attacks, was killed on May 1 at his Abbottabad compound in Pakistan by a team of US Seals.

The suits include cases filed by Deena Burnett, whose husband, Thomas, 28, was killed when his hijacked plane, United Airlines Flight 93, crashed in a Pennsylvania field, and the family of Thomas Ashton, who died at the World Trade Center. …more