Families of Sept. 11 Victims Urge Lutnick to Help Extradite Saudi National

[ad_1] The households of a number of the victims killed within the Sept. 11, 2001, assaults who labored for the bond buying and selling firm of Howard Lutnick, now the commerce secretary, are urging him to assist extradite a Saudi Arabian nationwide doubtlessly concerned within the assaults as he prepares to have interaction in financial talks with the dominion.

In a letter to Mr. Lutnick, obtained by The New York Instances, the households representing the lots of of staff on the firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, who died within the assault cited just lately unsealed proof displaying that Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi intelligence agent, had ties to the attackers.

Mr. Lutnick is himself a relative of a sufferer of the terrorist assault; his brother, who additionally labored for Cantor Fitzgerald, died. And Cantor, whose places of work spanned the one hundred and first to the one hundred and fifth flooring of the World Commerce Middle’s North Tower, misplaced extra staff than another agency affected by the assaults.

The letter comes as Mr. Lutnick plans to accompany President Trump to Saudi Arabia this week as a part of a weeklong journey to the Center East. The households urged Mr. Lutnick to make the case that Mr. al-Bayoumi be delivered to justice in any discussions about strengthening the USA’ financial partnership with the dominion. The kin wrote that his appointment “offers us renewed hope” to find out the total fact in regards to the assaults and who was accountable.

“You're in a singular place to emphasise that any such partnership should start with accountability and justice, making certain that Omar al-Bayoumi is handed over to the USA to face justice in an American court docket,” learn the letter, which had greater than 150 signatories.

“This subject transcends politics; it's a matter of precept,” the letter continued. “It's about honoring the lives we misplaced, and whether or not the nation that despatched them to their tragic deaths will ever be held accountable.”

Commerce Division officers declined to remark. An individual with data of Mr. Lutnick’s considering mentioned he had seen the letter and deeply appreciated the relations’ ideas.

Mr. Lutnick, who was serving because the agency’s chief govt on the time of the assault, misplaced 658 staff, together with his finest buddy. In a social media put up final yr, he recounted how he was dropping his son off for his first day of kindergarten when his cellphone saved ringing and disconnecting as his brother, Gary, tried to name to say goodbye.

Cantor Fitzgerald continued to help the households affected by the assaults, giving them $180 million. It additionally paid for his or her well being look after 10 years and arrange a reduction fund.

“I promised to handle all of the households,” he wrote. “They turned a part of my household.”

There was dissent inside the agency over how a settlement allocation from American Airways over the plane that slammed into the World Commerce Middle north tower, inflicting it to break down. Mr. Lutnick advised the corporate’s executives in 2014 that the cash was to be largely disbursed amongst companions on the agency, versus relations of these killed.

For years, details about Mr. al-Bayoumi’s potential involvement within the Sept. 11 assaults was obscured.

Final summer time, a trove of proof seized by British authorities from the house of Mr. al-Bayoumi tying him to the Sept. 11 Qaeda hijackers was made public for the primary time.

Greater than every week after the assaults, British law enforcement officials raided the house of Mr. al-Bayoumi, who had met two of the Sept. 11 hijackers in Los Angeles shortly after they arrived in early 2000. Among the many gadgets the officers seized was a pad on which Mr. al-Bayoumi had sketched an airplane in blue ink, above which he had written a mathematical equation.

The British authorities turned the fabric over to the F.B.I. for its investigation of the assaults. Nevertheless it stays unclear what occurred to the drawing after that. It was not shared with the 9/11 Fee, a bipartisan group of lawmakers and consultants liable for writing the definitive account of the assaults. In its 2004 report, the fee referred to as Mr. al-Bayoumi “an unlikely candidate for clandestine involvement with Islamic extremists.”

Not one of the new proof from Mr. al-Bayoumi’s house conclusively proved that the Saudi authorities enabled the assaults, but it surely provides to a rising circumstantial case.

The households cited a report broadcast on “60 Minutes” final month, revealing that Mr. al-Bayoumi filmed the Capitol earlier than the assaults.

Within the letter, the households identified that such info had been within the F.B.I.’s palms weeks after the assault however was withheld from the American public and the Sept. 11 fee for years.