9/11 conspirator accuses Saudis of aiding al Qaeda

French citizen Zacarias Moussaoui , dubbed the 20th hijacker, is the only al Qaeda member ever convicted for plotting the deadliest terror strikes in American history.

According to the lawyers for the families of the 9/11 victims, his testimony is a part of new evidence that agents of Saudi Arabia "knowingly and directly" helped the hijackers who carried out the attack.

Some families of 9/11 victims are currently waging a legal battle to prove that Saudi Arabia supported and funded al Qaeda. In papers filed in the Manhattan federal court on Tuesday, their legal representatives wrote that an "expansive volume" of previously unavailable US and foreign intelligence reports, congressional testimony, government reports and other information supports the claim.

Moussaoui's testimony was filed in opposition to the newest bid by Saudi Arabia to dismiss the lawsuits.

Attack on the president's plane

Moussaoui, who had written a letter offering to testify, is currently serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison in the American state of Colorado, after pleading guilty to terror charges.

He claimed that he had created a digital database listing al Qaeda donors, which included "extremely famous" Saudi officials, among them a former Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Turki al-Faisal Al Saud, as well as a Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who served as the Saudi ambassador to the US until 2005.

In the testimony, which he made in October last year, Moussaoui also claimed he had met, in Afghanistan, an official from Saudi Arabia's embassy in Washington, when they had discussed al Qaeda plans to attack the US. Moussaoui also stated that he was set to meet the same man in Washington, where the official was supposed to help him find the right location "suitable to launch a stinger attack" on Air Force One.

In addition, Moussaoui asserts that he personally traveled to Saudi Arabia twice to deliver handwritten letters between Osama bin Laden and high-profile officials, including Prince Turki.

Moussaoui lawyers claimed schizophrenia

The Saudi embassy in Washington denied the accusation, calling Moussaoui "a deranged criminal whose own lawyers presented evidence that he was mentally incompetent," and said his words had no credibility.

"The September 11 attack has been the most intensely investigated crime in history and the findings show no involvement by the Saudi government or Saudi officials," it said in a statement.

At Moussaoui's trial in 2006, his lawyers argued that he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and he exhibited stormy and unpredictable behavior in court.

dj/bk (AFP, AP, Reuters)