Court ruling ends Saudi Arabia suits

Local law firm Motley Rice will continue its fight to identify the financiers of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, even though the Supreme Court let stand Monday a lower ruling that ended lawsuits against Saudi Arabia and four of its princes.

The sprawling lawsuits on behalf of the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks allege the princes, various Islamic charities, banks and others funneled money to al-Qaida.

On Monday, the Supreme Court left in place a federal appeals court decision saying that Saudi Arabia and the princes are protected by sovereign immunity, which generally means that foreign countries can't be sued in American courts.

Jodi Flowers, an attorney with Motley Rice, said families of 9/11 victims are "deeply frustrated by this latest legal insult" but that they "remain committed to pursuing the claims against the other defendants that remain in the case. How the trial court will sort that out remains to be seen."

Motley Rice, which is based in Mount Pleasant, has spent millions of dollars pursuing terrorist financiers. They've sent their lawyers overseas to interview informants and acquired tens of thousands of documents from Spain, Germany and other foreign governments and plugged the information into a massive database.

But legal experts have said the lawsuit faced many hurdles, particularly over a person's right to sue foreign governments and their officials.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York previously upheld a federal judge's ruling throwing out the lawsuits. The appeals court said the defendants were protected by sovereign immunity and the plaintiffs would need to prove that the princes engaged in intentional actions aimed at U.S. residents.

In their appeal to the high court, both sides cited the report of the Sept. 11 Commission. The victims noted that the report said Saudi Arabia long had been considered the primary source of al-Qaida funding. The Saudis' court filing, however, pointed out that the commission "found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded the organization."

The Obama administration had angered some victims and families by urging the Supreme Court justices to pass up the case.