The chilling pre-9/11 videos that victims families say will finally prove Saudi culpability in court

Two chilling videos kept out of sight for decades could be the key to persuading a court next month that Saudi Arabia was behind the Sept.11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and that victims’ families have amassed enough evidence to continue their years-long legal battle, according to family members of victims.Federal Appeals Court judges in lower Manhattan will hear oral arguments for the first time Oct.

7 that connect the men in those videos to the Saudi government and its intelligence services, as well as the horrific attacks of that day.Both videos involve the same enigmatic figure, Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi national who helped secure California lodging for a pair of American Airlines Flight 77 hijackers – but who left the country for the UK about a year before the attacks.He was questioned at the request of the US and held by British authorities, but was never charged, and eventually moved back to Saudi Arabia.Now, about 10,000 family members of 9/11 victims who have joined in the suit want to use that evidence to persuade a Second Circuit Court of Appeals panel that it is finally time to find the Saudi government accountable and that the evidence is strong enough to do so.“These pieces of evidence demonstrate that Bayoumi had foreknowledge of what the hijackers’ role and intent was,” said Brett Eagleson, president of 9/11 Justice, a group that successfully pushed legislation to allow Americans to sue foreign governments for damages.“What these videos and what this evidence suggests and proves is that Bayoumi was in constant contact with higher and more senior Saudi government officials,” said Eagleson, whose father died in the South Tower on 9/11.One video shows al-Bayoumi, who had murky government ties and a web of official contacts, and who according to a 2017 FBI memo was on the payroll of Saudi intelligence – filming the US Capitol and talking about a “plan.” Plaintiffs say he made it at the behest of Al Qaeda.Lawyers for the victims’ famili...