U.S. House votes to allow Sept. 11 families to sue Saudi Arabia

WASHINGTON, Sept 9 (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation by voice vote on Friday that would allow the families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to sue Saudi Arabia's government for damages, despite the White House's threat to veto the measure. The House passed the legislation Friday by a voice vote, about four months after the measure cleared the Senate despite vehement objections from Saudi Arabia. The bill -- approved in the House by a voice vote some four months after its Senate passage -- is strongly opposed by the government of Saudi Arabia, the home nation of 15 of the 19 hijackers in the September 11, 2001 attacks. The bill set for a House vote Friday gives victims' families the right to sue in U.S. court for any role that elements of the Saudi government may have played in the 2001 attacks that killed thousands in New York, the Washington, D.C., area and Pennsylvania. The White House has signaled that Obama would veto the legislation over the potential for it to backfire and apprehension about undermining a long-standing yet strained relationship with a critical U.S. ally in the Middle East. US House allows 9/11 victims to sue Saudi, bill heads to Obama

The House of Representatives passed legislation Friday that would allow victims of the 9/11 attacks and their relatives sue foreign governments suspected of backing acts of terrorism against the United States. [nW1N12802E]

If Obama carries out that threat and the required two-thirds of both the Republican-majority House and Senate still support the bill, it would be the first time since Obama's presidency began in 2009 that Congress had overridden a veto. Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, said the U.S. government should be more concerned about the families of the victims than “diplomatic niceties.” Poe said he doesn’t know if the Saudi government had a role in the attacks that killed more than 3,000 people. Following Friday’s vote, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., one of the authors of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, said he was “pleased” the House had “taken this huge step forward towards justice” and said he hoped the Obama administration would not veto the bill. The Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act had triggered a threat from Riyadh to pull billions of dollars from the U.S. economy if the legislation is enacted.
The United States Congress passes a law allowing families of the victims of the September 11 attacks to sue Saudi Arabia. U.S. president Barack Obama threatens to veto it.