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Gold9472
06-20-2007, 04:32 PM
Judicial Watch Releases New FBI Documents: Osama bin Laden May Have Chartered Saudi Flight Out of U.S. after 9/11

http://www.judicialwatch.org/6322.shtml

(Gold9472: The question is, who (http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=20885) authorized those flights?)

6/20/2007

(Washington, DC) -- Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released new documents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) related to the “expeditious departure” of Saudi nationals, including members of the bin Laden family, from the United States following the 9/11 attacks. According to one of the formerly confidential documents, dated 9/21/2001, terrorist Osama bin Laden may have chartered one of the Saudi flights.

The document states: “ON 9/19/01, A 727 PLANE LEFT LAX, RYAN FLT #441 TO ORLANDO, FL W/ETA (estimated time of arrival) OF 4-5PM. THE PLANE WAS CHARTERED EITHER BY THE SAUDI ARABIAN ROYAL FAMILY OR OSAMA BIN LADEN…THE LA FBI SEARCHED THE PLANE [REDACTED] LUGGAGE, OF WHICH NOTHING UNUSUAL WAS FOUND.” The plane was allowed to depart the United States after making four stops to pick up passengers, ultimately landing in Paris where all passengers disembarked on 9/20/01, according to the document.

Overall, the FBI’s most recent document production includes details of the six flights between 9/14 and 9/24 that evacuated Saudi royals and bin Laden family members. The documents also contain brief interview summaries and occasional notes from intelligence analysts concerning the cursory screening performed prior to the departures. According to the FBI documents, incredibly not a single Saudi national nor any of the bin Laden family members possessed any information of investigative value.

Moreover, the documents contain numerous errors and inconsistencies which call to question the thoroughness of the FBI’s investigation of the Saudi flights. For example, on one document, the FBI claims to have interviewed 20 of 23 passengers on the Ryan International Airlines flight (commonly referred to as the “Bin Laden Family Flight”). On another document, the FBI claims to have interviewed 15 of 22 passengers on the same flight.

“Eight days after the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history, Osama bin Laden possibly charters a flight to whisk his family out of the country, and it’s not worth more than a luggage search and a few brief interviews?” asked Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Clearly these documents prove the FBI conducted a slapdash investigation of these Saudi flights. We’ll never know how many investigative leads were lost due to the FBI’s lack of diligence.”

U.S. District Court Judge Richard W. Roberts ordered the FBI to resubmit “proper disclosures” to the Court and Judicial Watch, having previously criticized the adequacy of redaction descriptions, the validity of exemption claims, and other errors in the FBI’s disclosures. Incredibly, the FBI had previously redacted Osama bin Laden’s name from the records in order “to protect privacy interests.”

The latest version of the FBI documents, obtained under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act and through ongoing litigation (Judicial Watch v. Department of Homeland Security & Federal Bureau of Investigation, No. 04-1643 (RWR)) is available below.

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Click here (http://www.judicialwatch.org/archive/2007/Saudi%20Docs%202.pdf) to view the latest version of the FBI Saudi Flight Documents

Gold9472
06-21-2007, 06:29 PM
Bin Laden may have arranged for family to flee US

http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/06/21/1957363.htm?section=world

Posted Thu Jun 21, 2007 7:38am AEST

Osama bin Laden may have chartered a plane that carried his family members and Saudi nationals out of the United States after the September 11, 2001 attacks, according to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) documents.

The papers, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, were made public by Judicial Watch, a Washington-based group that investigates government corruption.

One FBI document referred to a Ryan Air 727 airplane that departed Los Angeles International Airport on September 19 2001, which was said to have carried Saudi nationals out of the United States.

"The plane was chartered either by the Saudi Arabian royal family or Osama bin Laden," according to the document, which was among 224 pages posted online.

The flight made stops in Orlando, Florida; Washington, DC; and Boston, Massachusetts and eventually left its passengers in Paris the following day.

In all, the documents detail six flights between September 14 and September 24 that evacuated Saudi nationals and bin Laden family members, Judicial Watch said.

"Not a single Saudi national nor any of the bin Laden family members possessed any information of investigative value," Judicial Watch said in a statement.

'Documents inaccurate'
Asked about the document's assertion that either bin Laden or the Saudi royals ordered the flight, an FBI spokesman said the information was inaccurate.

"There is no new information here. Osama bin Laden did not charter a flight out of the US," FBI special agent Richard Kolko said.

"This is just an inflammatory headline by Judicial Watch to catch people's attention. This was thoroughly investigated by the FBI."

Meredith Diliberto, an attorney with Judicial Watch, says her group had seen a first version of the documents in 2005, although the FBI had heavily redacted the texts to black out names, including all references to bin Laden.

Nevertheless, unedited footnotes in the texts allowed lawyers to determine that bin Laden's name had been redacted.

They pressed the issue in court and on November 2006, the FBI was ordered to re-release the documents.

Gold9472
07-12-2009, 10:41 AM
bump