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For now, the identity of the person will remain a well-kept secret, even if it will be communicated to the lawyers representing the families of the victims of the attacks who claimed that the Saudi government had helped coordinate the terrorists in a lawsuit . lawyers may then ask the Department of Justice to disclose the name more broadly.
The attempt to divulge the name took place a day after the 18th anniversary of the attack, which claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 men and women, following intense deliberations at the ministry's summit. Justice.
The fact that the disclosure was entrusted to President Donald Trump is particularly striking in view of the efforts made by the administration to maintain close relations with the powerful Arab ally, including minimizing the kingdom's involvement in recent years. assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Attorney General William Barr made the final decision, said a Justice Department official.
While the Saudis have always denied any government involvement in the attacks, their role has been the subject of disputes in Washington.
Fifteen of the 19 al-Qaida terrorists who hijacked four planes on 11 September 2001 were Saudi nationals.
The 9/11 Commission created by the Congress in 2004 said it has found "no evidence that the Saudi government, as an institution or senior Saudi officials, has funded al-Qaeda individually, although A number of commission members have since stated, including in statements as part of the lawsuit, that the review did not include a comprehensive investigation into the evidence of the prosecution. A possible involvement of the Saudi government.
The name that the Justice Department plans to disclose comes from a four-page summary from 2012 of an FBI investigation into three people believed to help find housing and provide financial assistance. , as well as help to get flying lessons and driving licenses, two of the Southern California hijackers in the run up to the attack.
Two of the names are already known in a publicly available version of the document, although the third name has been expurgated. The two men, Fahad al-Thumairy and Omar Ahmed al-Bayoumi, have already been linked to the Saudi government in government reports.
Family lawyers argued that the unnamed person was probably a senior Saudi official and indicated part of the document in which the FBI was saying that a person whose name had been expurgated had "charged" al-Thumairy and al-Bayoumi to help the pirates of the air. . "
In a statement, the FBI said it had decided to declassify and provide the lawyers with the name "in light of the extraordinary circumstances of this particular case".
One official added that the information contained in the unnamed person's report referred to a theory of investigation pursued by the FBI at the time and not to a statement of facts.
The decision to disclose the document to the plaintiffs was "coordinated at the highest levels of the Ministry of Justice," prosecutors wrote in a case filed in court last week.
If the Department of Justice had claimed that it could not disclose the document under the privilege of state secrecy, which allowed the government to prevent the disclosure of sensitive information that could endanger national security, Barr himself should have filed an affidavit.
The families of the victims tried to sue the country in 2003, and in 2018, as part of their legal action, they were allowed to investigate. This was only allowed after the adoption by Congress of a law in 2016 of a law broadening the scope for civil suits against foreign countries accused of having a criminal offense. involvement in a terrorist attack.
US President Barack Obama vetoed this law that year, saying that it would expose US diplomats and military to litigation in other countries, but Congress has overruled the veto .
Lawyers representing the family members of almost all 9/11 victims, as well as thousands of survivors, last year sent subpoenas to Saudi Arabia, as well as to the United States. to the FBI, the CIA and the State Department. They received hundreds of pages of documents on a rolling basis.
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