NEW YORK (VINnews) — A 9/11 widow used Friday’s 25th anniversary ceremony to sharply criticize Saudi Arabia, accusing the kingdom of failing to answer questions about its alleged connections to the terrorists who carried out the attacks.
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Terry Strada, whose husband, Tom, was among 658 Cantor Fitzgerald employees killed when American Airlines Flight 11 struck the World Trade Center’s North Tower, pointed to the fact that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals.
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Strada, national chair of 9/11 Families United for Justice, said families have waited a quarter-century for accountability over what she described as Saudi support for radical Islamist terrorists. She also accused successive U.S. administrations of putting relations with Saudi Arabia ahead of the interests of 9/11 victims’ families.
Former Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden attended the ceremony. Vice President JD Vance represented the Trump administration.
Strada appealed directly to Vance, urging him to press Saudi Arabia to acknowledge the suffering caused by the attacks and to stand with victims, survivors and their families.
Her organization has pursued legal efforts seeking to hold Saudi Arabia responsible for its alleged involvement in the attacks, which killed 2,977 people in New York, at the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
The legal fight is expected to receive renewed attention next month, when a federal appeals panel in Manhattan is scheduled to hear arguments involving Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi national accused by victims’ families of having links to two of the Flight 77 hijackers.
Court-unsealed material includes a 1999 video of al-Bayoumi filming the U.S. Capitol. A 2017 FBI memo reportedly identified him as being on the payroll of Saudi intelligence. Saudi Arabia has long denied involvement in planning the attacks.
I watched the statement from Ms. Strada. I was very pleased that finally, after twenty five years, one of the relatives of the victims stated what she did. She directly criticized three of the four living ex-Presidents (Bush, Obama, and Biden), for their roles in covering up the involvement of the Saudi government with 9/11. It is too bad that the television cameras did not shift to show the expressions on the faces of the ex-Presidents, when Ms. Strada stated what had to be said.
luckily the mayor is not a Suuni