For the first time in history, a sovereign nation is going before a U.S. Court of Appeals panel to answer why terrorists on a “martyrdom mission” were allegedly supported in a mass murder 25 years ago today.

Saudi Arabia is that country, and tens of thousands of 9/11 plaintiffs are suing the kingdom in an endless pursuit of justice.

The hearing is set for Oct. 7 in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City, blocks from Ground Zero. And if the families win, all that went wrong a quarter-century ago beginning at 8:46 a.m. could finally be exposed.

“We’ve just been waiting for so long,” said Mike Casey of Wellesley, who lost his first wife, Neilie, in the terror attacks. “But now justice is being served, and that’s important to me for Neilie and her colleagues at TJX.”

Among the nearly 3,000 people killed on 9/11 were seven women from Natick’s TJX Companies. They were all on American Airlines Flight 11 out of Logan International Airport in Boston en route to California. It was the first of four jets al-Qaeda jihadists slammed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. United Airlines Flight 175 was the other hijacked plane out of Logan that day; it hit the South Tower at 9:03 a.m.

So, why is this case still open?

“We’re fighting for our American right to justice,” said Brett Eagleson of Connecticut, who was 15 when his dad, Bruce, died in the rubble of the Twin Towers. “If we win, we will have a full trial.”

A full trial will allow for discovery of every al-Qaeda terror cell in the U.S. — from Boston to Phoenix; Patterson, New Jersey, to Falls Church, Virginia; Minnesota to Maine and anywhere else the evidence leads.

Out of the 19 hijackers, 15 were Saudi nationals — including the first two to arrive in the U.S. They spoke no English and had no money, yet were set up in apartments all over Southern California until the day they joined other terror cells launching the worst attack on American soil since the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Next month, 9/11 families backed by law firms seeking this historic day in court have JASTA on their side. As the Herald was told, that singular act is of “seismic judicial importance.” It is the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, passed in 2016 after Congress voted overwhelmingly to override President Barack Obama’s veto.

It takes politics out of the equation, giving the judicial branch power over the executive branch when it comes to civil suits against sovereign nations.

The 53-page Plaintiffs’ Statement of Facts alleges that Saudi Arabian officials in Southern California and back home assisted the first two hijackers to arrive in the U.S. Those hijackers were Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, who arrived in Los Angeles on Jan. 15, 2000.

Saudi officials, the statement of facts reads, were given promotions and held welcome parties for the new arrivals who spoke no English yet obtained U.S. driver’s licenses. Cell phones were supplied, and apartments secured, all allegedly in support of a “martyrdom mission.”

“The one thing that Saudi Arabia got right in its pleadings was that there was a plan. In fact, it was a carefully formed, meticulous plan that accorded closely with Al-Qaeda’s own objectives in attacking the United States,” attorney Gavin Simpson for 9/11 plaintiffs said in court on July 24, 2024.

Saudi Arabia has denied they support any 9/11 terrorists, but a federal judge disagreed and now a panel of three Appeals Court jurists will decide the fate of this lawsuit.

“It feels like a lifetime of waiting for this opportunity,” said Kathleen Zapata, who lost her dad on 9/11 at the World Trade Center. “It’s amazing we have to fight our own government to get answers to why my father was murdered.

“It just adds to the heartbreak,” said the New Canaan, Connecticut, woman. Today she’s 47, the same age as her dad when he died.

They won’t say it, so we will. The law firms sticking it out all these years with the 9/11 families include Motley Rice LLC, Kreindler & Kreindler LLP, Cozen O’ Connor and Anderson Kill P.C. They represent thousands from all 50 states.

“We need to get it done,” said Brian Sullivan, a retired Army Military Police lieutenant colonel and former FAA Special Agent in Boston, who warned months before 9/11 that Logan Airport was wide-open to a terror attack. “Our enemy sees us as weak and incompetent. That just invites further attacks.”

Nobody listened then, but maybe they will now. The statement of facts in the Saudi case spells out how the FBI knows most of this already, from its investigations titled “PENTBOMB,” to “Operation Encore,” and the “Arabian Peninsula Squad.”

It all details the 9/11 plot’s “formidable complexity,” and how even Saudi Arabia came to the harsh realization that al-Qaeda, under Osama bin Laden, was stuck in a “rigid seventh-century” interpretation of Islam and, therefore, hell-bent on destruction everywhere.

It all comes down to three Appeals Court judges sitting on the precipice of history.

Statement of Facts

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