WASHINGTON, June 20: Osama bin Laden may have chartered a plane that carried his family members and Saudi nationals out of the United States after the Sept 11, 2001, attacks, according to FBI documents released on Wednesday.
The papers, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, were made public by Judicial Watch, a Washington-based group that investigates government corruption.
One FBI document referred to a Ryan Air 727 airplane that departed Los Angeles International Airport on Sept 19, 2001, which was said to have carried Saudi nationals out of the United States.
“The plane was chartered either by the Saudi Arabian royal family or Osama bin Laden,” according to the document, which was among 224 pages posted online.
The flight made stops in Orlando, Florida; Washington, DC; and Boston, Massachusetts, and eventually left its passengers in Paris the following day.
In all, the documents detail six flights between Sept 14 and Sept 24 that evacuated Saudi nationals and Laden family members, Judicial Watch said.
“Incredibly, not a single Saudi national nor any of the Laden family members possessed any information of investigative value,” Judicial Watch said in a statement. An FBI spokesman said the information was inaccurate.—AFP
