Al Qaeda Convict Testify Saudi Royal Are Key Donors To Terror Network

Sky News Reports………………………………..

A convicted al Qaeda terrorist has testified that members of the Saudi royal family supported and financed the terror network in the 1990s, The New York Times reported.

Zacarias Moussaoui also claimed that he discussed ways to take down Air Force One with a member of the Saudi Embassy to the US.

Moussaoui, a French citizen, is described as the 20th 9/11 hijacker because he had taken flying lessons and was wired thousands of dollars, but was arrested before the attacks.

He has pleaded guilty in a US court to charges of conspiring in the 2001 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

His testimony - from inside a supermax prison in Colorado where he is serving his life sentence - is  part of a lawsuit filed by relatives of 9/11 victims against Saudi Arabia.

Moussaoui said that in the late 1990s he was tasked with creating a digital database of donors to al Qaeda, and he listed prominent Saudi royals.

Among them were Prince Turki al-Faisal, who served at the time as Saudi intelligence chief, and Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, a long-time ambassador to the US, the Times reported.

Moussaoui said he helped carry out a trial explosion of a bomb for a planned attack on the US Embassy in London as well as serving as a courier for Osama bin Laden, the terror mastermind who was killed in May 2011.

He claimed he discussed using a Stinger missile to shoot down Air Force One during a meeting in Afghanistan with a Saudi official of the embassy in Washington.

Moussaoui's credibility has been called into question.

At this trial in 2006 his own lawyers claimed that he was mentally ill, though he was deemed fit to stand trial.

The Saudi Embassy in Washington has denied the allegations, saying in a statement that "Moussaoui is a deranged criminal whose own lawyers presented evidence that he was mentally incompetent.

"His words have no credibility."

The statement referred to the Saudi September 11 commission, which rejected allegations that Saudi officials had funded al Qaeda.

"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.

There have long been claims that bin Laden, himself a member of a wealthy Saudi family, found support in his home country. The new allegations - which would offer new details, if deemed credible - were made in October but only submitted to court this week.

The new claims surfaced just a week after President Barack Obama travelled to Saudi Arabia to pay his respects after King Abdullah's death and meet the new monarch, King Salman.