Saudi filing faults Cozen suit

Setting the stage for a critical court decision, lawyers for Saudi Arabia have asserted in court papers that the Supreme Court should reject arguments that the desert kingdom be held accountable for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks because, over a period of many years, it financed al-Qaeda.

In papers filed with the Supreme Court, lawyers for the kingdom and several high-ranking Saudi royals say that U.S. law provides blanket immunity to Saudi Arabia from lawsuits over the 9/11 attacks.

The lawsuit was brought by the Philadelphia law firm of Cozen O'Connor on behalf of dozens of insurance companies that paid out billions in property-damage claims at ground zero. A federal district court judge in Manhattan threw out the case against Saudi Arabia in 2005, and that decision was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

A number of Saudi government-affiliated charities remain as defendants in the lawsuit, however, as do various Saudi banks and the governments of Sudan, Iran, and other countries that allegedly harbor terrorists.

Cozen and its clients "cannot . . . force an ally of the United States into the extraordinary posture of defending itself in a U.S. court against claims that it sponsored an act of terrorism against the United States," lawyers for the kingdom said in their brief.

Cozen lawyers accused the kingdom of distorting their arguments to protect itself from legal exposure.

"Their briefs largely evade the central legal questions presented by our petition to the Supreme Court, and in lieu of addressing those arguments they mischaracterize the theories and evidence that we have advanced against Saudi Arabia and its agencies," said Sean Carter, one of the Cozen lawyers handling the case.

Carter added that the kingdom's legal strategy was an attempt to "evade any review on the merits of Saudi Arabia's support for al-Qaeda."

The lawsuit was filed in 2003, shortly before the two-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, by lawyers for Cozen. It eventually was combined with other lawsuits on behalf of individual victims, other insurers not represented by Cozen and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the developer of the World Trade Center property and headquartered, at the time, in the twin towers.