Guantanamo Prisoner Says Saudi Royal Was Involved in Planning Jihad Attacks

From the Associated Press:

MIAMI (AP) — An accused al-Qaida bomb-maker who went to college in Arizona told military officials at the U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that he believed an unnamed member of the Saudi royal family was part of an effort to recruit him for violent extremist acts before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to a newly released transcript. 

Ghassan Abdallah al-Sharbi said a religious figure in Saudi Arabia used the term "your highness" during a telephone conversation with a man, just before urging al-Sharbi to return to the U.S. and take part in a plot against the U.S. that would involve learning to fly a plane. 

The Sept. 11 commission found there was no evidence to indicate that the Saudi government as an institution or Saudi senior officials individually had supported the attacks, and the kingdom's government has consistently denied it had any role in the plot.  

It was early 2001, and al-Sharbi had only recently returned from the United States, where he had taken some flight school courses in Phoenix with two men who would become hijackers in the 9/11 attacks. 

Al-Sharbi described the conversation in June to the Periodic Review Board, which assesses whether Guantanamo prisoners can be released. 

The Pentagon on Thursday posted a transcript, with parts blacked out, on the website of the board, which includes representatives from six U.S. agencies and departments. 

The statement is convoluted and lacks important details, such as whether the "religious figure" might be close to any Saudi officials. It does not indicate who the Saudi royal might be. 

The term can be used for thousands of members of the Saudi royal family; al-Sharbi did not say he met the man. 

Al-Sharbi also appears to be struggling with illness. He tells the board he had just come from the detainee hospital, is "really exhausted, and nauseous and lethargic," and uses what is described as a "manual breathing device." 

His statement adds to a list of suggestive but hardly definitive clues about possible involvement by members of the Saudi establishment in the Sept. 11 attacks, in which 17 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi. 

The Saudi Embassy in Washington declined to comment on the al-Sharbi transcript. In the past, the Saudis have pointed to the 9/11 Commission, FBI investigations and other probes that found no Saudi government or royal family involvement in the attacks.