Terry Strada, whose husband was killed in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, said Friday during the 25th anniversary ceremony at Ground Zero that Saudi Arabia continues to evade responsibility for the terrorist attacks.
Strada went on to accuse the U.S. government of “protecting” Saudi Arabia, saying “administration after administration” had failed the victims’ families over the last quarter-century.
“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia fomented a rancid culture of anti-American terrorism around the globe, and then sent its agents to support the radical Islamist hijackers so they could attack you and all of our loved ones,” said Strada, the national chair of 9/11 Families United.
“But for 25 years, administration after administration, including leaders in front of us here today, chose to protect the Saudis instead of standing with the 9/11 families,” Strada added.
I LOST MY WIFE ON 9/11. PLEASE LET THIS 25TH ANNIVERSARY BELONG TO THE FAMILIES
She also addressed Vice President JD Vance, the most senior Trump administration official to attend the ceremony in Lower Manhattan.
President Donald Trump spoke at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia.
“It has been one betrayal after another. President Trump can still change that. Tell the Saudis to stop lying. Tell them that if they want to be friends with the USA, they cannot continue to deny all of this,” Strada said. “Vice President Vance, thank you for being here today. Please carry that message back. Stand with the families. Stand with the survivors. Stand with Americans.”
Strada’s husband, Tom Strada, was on the 104th floor of the North Tower when it was struck by American Airlines Flight 11, Strada told WPTV in an interview on the 20th anniversary of 9/11.
Tom Strada, 41, worked at Cantor Fitzgerald and days before the attacks, he and his wife had brought their third child home from the hospital. After the impact of the plane, he called her and said he was heading toward the stairwell.
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Since her husband’s death, along with the deaths of nearly 3,000 others at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and aboard the hijacked planes, Strada has become a leading advocate for accountability and transparency surrounding the Sept. 11 attacks.
Strada is among thousands of Sept. 11 family members and survivors who sued Saudi Arabia, alleging the kingdom provided material support to the al Qaeda hijackers. Saudi Arabia has repeatedly denied the allegations.
During her remarks Friday, Strada reminded the crowd that a federal judge ruled last August there was “reasonable evidence” that two Saudi government employees supported two future al Qaeda hijackers who came to the United States in early 2000 and took flight lessons.
The judge, George B. Daniels, allowed the lawsuit to go forward, denying Saudi Arabia’s attempt to dismiss it.
For more than a decade after the Sept. 11 attacks, victims’ families were barred from pursuing a lawsuit against a foreign government because of sovereign immunity protections.
That changed in September 2016, when Congress passed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), allowing Americans to sue foreign governments accused of providing material support for terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.
In her speech, Strada criticized President Barack Obama for vetoing JASTA.
At the time, he argued the legislation went too far by threatening “to strip all foreign governments of immunity from judicial process in the United States based solely upon allegations by private litigants.”
Congress overrode his veto days later, making JASTA law and paving the way for the lawsuit against Saudi Arabia to be filed in March 2017. The case remains pending in federal court.
