Saudi princes donated to al-Qaeda, claims 9/11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui
The only al-Qaeda plotter convicted over the 9/11 attacks has told American lawyers that members of the Saudi royal family donated millions of dollars to the terror group in the 1990s.
The only al-Qaeda plotter convicted over the 9/11 attacks has told American lawyers that members of the Saudi royal family donated millions of dollars to the terror group in the 1990s.
French citizen Zacarias Moussaoui, dubbed the “20th hijacker”, made the claims in court papers filed in a New York federal court by lawyers for victims of the attacks who accuse Saudi Arabia of supporting al-Qaeda.
The Saudi embassy denied the allegations, branding Moussaoui “a deranged criminal whose own lawyers presented evidence that he was mentally incompetent.”
At trial in 2006, his lawyers argued that he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and he exhibited stormy and unpredictable behaviour in court.
In testimony he said he created a database of al-Qaeda donors, including members of the royal family, such as former intelligence chief Prince Turki al Faisal and Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who was Saudi ambassador to the United States for 22 years until 2005.
Moussaoui said he met in Afghanistan an official from the Saudi embassy in Washington to discuss al-Qaeda’s plots to attack the United States, and that he was supposed to meet the same man again in the US capital for help on a plot to shoot down Air Force One.
