Overview of September 11th MDL litigation and plaintiffs' allegations of al‑Qaeda material support

In re: TERRORIST ATTACKS ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001., 2012 WL 257568 (2012) On September 11, 2001, members of the al-Qaeda’ terrorist organization hijacked four commercial airliners and used those planes as weapons in a coordinated attack on the United States (“the September 11th Attacks”). The September 11th Attacks were the culmination of a campaign to wage jihad against the United States, set in motion with the formation of al-Qaeda in 1988 and made possible by the massive financial, logistic, and material support provided to al-Qaeda by its collaborators and *9 sympathizers over a period of many years. That support allowed al-Qaeda to build the global infrastructure necessary to plan and conduct the September 11th Attacks. Through their suits, plaintiffs seek to hold accountable the states, purported charities, banks, organizations and individuals who knowingly provided material support or resources to al-Qaeda, thereby making the September 11th Attacks possible. Plaintiffs’ complaints assert claims under the Anti-Terrorism Act, Alien Tort Statute, Torture Victim Protection Act, and common law theories of concerted action liability. Plaintiffs initiated their respective actions between August 15, 2002 and September 2, 2004. In presenting their substantive claims and theories of jurisdiction against the defendants, and in responding to the various motions to dismiss, plaintiffs offered detailed factual allegations in their respective complaints concerning the origins of al-Qaeda, the vast infrastructure that fueled that organization’s growth and development, and al-Qaeda’s systematic and public targeting of the United States and its citizens beginning in 1988. JA3775-78.4 Within this broader framework, the *10 pleadings described the particular character of the defendants’ collaboration with al-Qaeda, and the nature of the material support and resources they provided to al-Qaeda in furtherance of its jihad against the United States. JA3602-3728, 3778-3876. Plaintiffs in virtually all cases later filed one or more amended complaints, and numerous RICO Statements and/or More Definite Statements as to individual defendants, which served to amend their respective complaints.’ Those supplemental pleadings offered additional details concerning the individual defendants’ roles in supporting al-Qaeda, based largely on the flow of new evidence and information uncovered as a result of the intensive investigations initiated following the September 11th Attacks concerning the sources of al-Qaeda’s vast financial and logistical support. On December 9, 2003, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation issued an order transferring the Burnett action from the District of Columbia to the Southern District of New York and consolidating all then-indicated, citations to the record refer to the docket numbers on the MDL 1570 docket sheet. *11 pending cases against al-Qaeda’s material sponsors and supporters arising from the September 11th Attacks. The September 11th MDL was assigned to Judge Richard Casey, who presided over the consolidated proceedings until his death on March 22, 2007. On April 20, 2007, the September 11th MDL was re-assigned to Judge George Daniels, who has since presided over the trial court proceedings. Between 2002 and 2005, approximately 100 defendants entered appearances in the cases comprising the September 11th MDL and, with one exception, moved to dismiss the claims against them. In general terms, the defendants’ motions sought dismissal principally under one or more of the following theories: (1) lack of subject matter jurisdiction under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA); (2) lack of personal jurisdiction; and/or (3) failure to state a claim. In response to defendants’ motions seeking dismissal for lack of personal jurisdiction and/or subject matter jurisdiction and under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), plaintiffs supplemented their already detailed allegations record relevant to those jurisdictional disputes through extrinsic information and evidence filed in support of their oppositions to the Defendants’ motions to dismiss. These materials *12 included, inter alia, governmental and intelligence reports, documents released in response to Defendants’ Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, U.S. filings in criminal trials, Congressional testimony, analyses authored by counterterrorism experts and think tanks, Treasury Department statements concerning designations of terror sponsors and supporters pursuant to Executive Order 13224, as well as relevant public reporting. WESTLAW HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_023373