A federal appeals court has heard Saudi Arabia’s attempt to end long-running litigation that seeks to hold the kingdom liable for alleged assistance provided to two of the September 11 hijackers.
A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit considered Saudi Arabia’s challenge to an August 2025 district-court ruling that allowed the claims to proceed. Families of people killed in the attacks, survivors and insurers allege that Saudi officials helped Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar after the two men arrived in California in 2000.
The allegations have not been established at trial. Saudi Arabia denies responsibility and argues that the evidence does not show that the people accused of assisting the hijackers were acting as agents of the kingdom, or that any alleged assistance caused the attacks. It also maintains that sovereign immunity protects it from the suits.
The claimants rely on the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, which Congress enacted in 2016 over a presidential veto. The statute created a terrorism-related exception to the ordinary immunity of foreign states, but it did not dispense with the need to prove agency, causation and the other elements of liability.
The appeal is therefore concerned with whether the district court applied those threshold rules correctly, not with a final determination of Saudi responsibility. The panel did not announce a timetable for its decision. Until it rules, the lower court’s refusal to dismiss the claims remains the operative decision, while proceedings may continue subject to the appellate court’s control.
