A federal judge Wednesday dismissed six lawsuits seeking damages for the 9/11 attacks from the construction company founded by Usama bin Laden’s father, because there was no evidence it provided a “financial lifeline” to the now slain terror leader in the years leading up to the 2001 plot.
The lawsuit sought to hold the Saudi Binladen Group — Saudi Arabia’s largest construction company — liable for “the physical construction, death and injuries suffered as a result of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2011.”
The numerous plaintiffs included owners of property damaged in the attacks and relatives of those killed.
US District Judge George B. Daniels in Manhattan dismissed the lawsuits because there was not enough evidence to give the court personal jurisdiction over the Saudi Binladen Group.
Daniels said that after nearly seven years of discovery, the plaintiffs had produced “no evidentiary support” that the company provided al Qaeda leader bin Laden with a “financial lifeline” that materially supported the planning of the attacks.
Bin Laden was banished from the company after al Qaeda’s first bombing of New York City’s World Trade Center on Feb. 26, 1993. The bombing killed six and injured more than 1,000.
The plaintiffs also alleged that the company knew about bin Laden’s nefarious anti-American motives before 1993, and that this knowledge was enough to connect the Saudi Binladen Group to 9/11.
Daniels said this nebulous association was “too temporarily remote to establish jurisdiction.”
Daniels also held that the company did not do enough business in the United States to satisfy the “minimum contacts” requirement for general jurisdiction.
Bin Laden was killed last May in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in a raid by US Navy Seals.