House Oversight — Estate records
HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_026648
WebPage
- Pages
- 2
- Text
- Searchable
Text as released
Machine-read from the scan. Names, dates and numbers can be misread — check anything you rely on against the original page.
Saudi Arabia lobbies to amend JASTA law which allows 9/11 victims to sue the Gulf state Following an extended trip to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir told reporters on Sunday he has been trying “to persuade [US lawmakers] that there needs to be an amendment of the law,” the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), that legitimizes lawsuits by Americans regarding terrorist attacks committed on US soil. US House adopts ’Sue the Saudis’ 9/11 bill the Saudi minister said. “We believe the law, that curtails sovereign immunities, represents a grave danger to the international system,” Jubeir said at a joint press conference with visiting US Secretary of State John Kerry, as cited by AFP news agency. Saudi Arabia has repeatedly expressed these views since the US Congress passed the legislation in September, overriding US President Barack Obama’s veto of JASTA. This time, however, negotiations on the matter have already been held, “The question now becomes how do you go about amending the law,” he said. Fifteen out of the 19 hijackers involved in the 9/11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people were Saudi subjects. The kingdom, however, has denied any ties to the hijackers. The JASTA law allows attack survivors and relatives of attack victims to file lawsuits against foreign countries for acts of terrorism that kill Americans on US soil. Also known as House Resolution 3815, it creates an exception to the sovereign immunity law introduced in 1976, allowing US citizens to sue foreign governments in US federal court and demand compensation if those governments are proven to bear some responsibility for attacks within the US. This exception drew concern from many countries – both in the Gulf and globally – that the legislation will erode sovereign immunity, considered one of the founding principles of international relations. Some British, French, and Dutch lawmakers have threatened retaliatory legislation to allow their courts to pursue US officials, which is why […]