A congressional inquiry into intelligence failures related to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States is investigating a possible money trail from the Saudi government to two of the hijackers, U.S. sources said, according to Reuters.
They said the joint inquiry of the Senate and House intelligence committees received information in recent months about the possibility that money was directed from the Saudi government through Omar Al-Bayoumi, a Saudi who lived in San Diego, to hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi.
Some government sources cautioned there was no definitive proof of Saudi government involvement, but that congressional investigators were looking at information that suggested it.
U.S. and British media have reported that U.S. federal investigators believe that Al-Bayoumi helped pay the rent for the two men on their San Diego apartment.
An FBI confidential informant was the landlord who rented rooms to the two hijackers when they lived in the Californian city about a year before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Information suggesting a possible Saudi government link prompted a week's postponement of the inquiry's final open hearing on Oct. 9, at which the FBI and CIA directors were to testify, to allow lawmakers to explore the suspicions in detail behind closed doors, the sources said.
Earlier this year, relatives of those who died in the Sept. 11 attacks were named as plaintiffs in a suit that alleges that: Prince Naif bin Abdulaziz al Saud, a royal-family member, gave al-Qaeda money in support of terrorism. In addition, as interior minister, he controls activities of many Islamic charities that have helped finance al-Qaeda.
Prince Abudullah al Faisal bin Abdulaziz al Saud, the former Saudi health minister and a royal-family member, aided al-Qaeda through his role as majority owner of Alfaisliah Group, which employed an al-Qaeda financier, Muhammed Galeb Kalaje Zouaydi, who is now jailed in Spain awaiting trial, the suit alleges. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
