Al-Qaeda was sponsored by prominent members of Saudi Arabia's royal family during the planning stages of 9/11, jailed terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui revealed during a jailhouse interview with lawyers.
Moussaoui, an al-Qaeda member who was convicted after admitting his role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, stated that not only were Saudi royals intimately involved in planning the Sept. 11 attacks against the United States, but that he also attended a meeting at the Saudi Embassy in Washington about assassinating the president aboard Air Force One with a Stinger missile, The New York Times reported on Tuesday.
"I know that they had Stinger," he told lawyers representing families of 9/11 victims who have filed a lawsuit against Saudi Arabia. "And he - we talk about the feasibility of - of shooting Air Force One."
Last year, Moussaoui wrote a letter to a judge of the U.S. federal court in New York, asking to testify against major donors of the terrorist organization in the late 1990s, such as former intelligence chief Prince Bandar Bin Sultan and the ambassador of the country in the U.S., Prince al-Waleed Bin Talal.
After finally being granted permission for an interview in October, the convict admitted being responsible for creating a digital database of donors, personally meeting with Saudi royals to discuss funding for jihad and acting as a courier for Osama bin Laden, according to New York Daily News.
"Sheikh Osama wanted to keep a record of who gave money," he said in the testimony. "Who is to be listened to or who contributed to the jihad."
However the accusations have been firmly denied by the Saudi embassy, who noted that the national Sept. 11 Commission had previously rejected allegations that the country's government funded al-Qaeda.
"Moussaoui is a deranged criminal whose own lawyers presented evidence that he was mentally incompetent," its Monday's statement said. "His words have no credibility."
Prior to the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the 46-year-old also described meeting King Salman and other royals in Saudi Arabia to discuss plans on waging jihad, New York Post reported.
Moussaoui, the French citizen whose parents originally came from Morocco, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2006 and is currently serving a life sentence at Colorado's Supermax prison. He was long suspected of organizing 9/11 attacks and had been arrested a few weeks before them.
