However, the bill faces a potential veto by President Barack Obama amid concerns that it could harm USA relations with Saudi Arabia.
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That’s because President Barack Obama has promised to veto the bill, but there could be enough support in Congress to overcome his seal of disapproval; it passed unanimously in the House and Senate.
The bill passed by a voice vote two days before the 15th anniversary of the attacks. A document released previous year stated that al-Bouyoumi has “ties to the Saudi Government and many in the local Muslim community in San Diego believed that he was a Saudi intelligence officer”.
Saudi officials have long denied that the kingdom had any role in the plot of the 2001 terror attacks which killed almost 3,000 people in New York, Washington D.C area and Pennsylvania.
Obama administration officials have been trying to stop the bill for months, warning that it would put Americans overseas at legal risk, and leave the United States vulnerable in court systems around the world.
The Obama administration has cautioned that if U.S. citizens can take the Saudis to court, then a foreign country could in turn sue the United States.
Supporters of the legislation, including Schumer, have voiced confidence that they would have the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto. The law has been invoked to shield Saudi Arabia from lawsuits over the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. He said it would be up to a jury to decide if the Saudis were involved in the attacks.
Separately, a bipartisan group of United States senators announced on Thursday they will attempt to block the Obama administration’s proposed sale of more than $1bn (£754m) in weapons to Saudi Arabia.
“This legislation would change long-standing, global law regarding sovereign immunity”, said White House spokesman Josh Earnest said back in May, after the Senate unanimously approved the bill.
While family members of 9/11 victims see hope in the passage of the bill, it simply allows suits to be brought in court.
The Saudi Foreign Minister has previously said that Saudi Arabia’s opposition to the bill was based on basic principles of sovereign immunity.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., led with opening session on September 9 commemorating the 9/11 15th Anniversary Memorial Service with a moment of silence.
The vote’s time was emblematic, passing two days before the 15th anniversary of the hijacked-plane attacks on Washington and NY.
“The way that this law is written could open up USA companies and even potentially US personnel to vulnerabilities when they’re engaged in actions or doing business or conducting official government work overseas”, Earnest pointed out.
“In fact what they [Congress] are doing is stripping the principle of sovereign immunities which would turn the world for global law into the law of the jungle”, Minister Adel Al-Jubeir said in May in a statement”.
Saudi Arabian officials have always been suspected of having aided the Al Qaeda hijackers who carried out the 9/11 terrorist attack. The allegations were never substantiated by later USA investigations into the terrorist attacks.
While the 9/11 Commission found him to be an “unlikely candidate for clandestine involvement” with Islamic extremists, the new document says that Federal Bureau of Investigation files indicated al-Bayoumi had “extensive contact with Saudi government establishments in the United States and received financial support from a Saudi company affiliated with the Saudi Ministry of Defense”.
The Senate passed the bill in May even as the White House said it would reject it if it ever got to the president’s desk. Saudi officials have denied that their government had any role in plotting the attacks. The US and Saudi are now involved in efforts against Isis, while the US is supporting Saudi Arabia military operation against rebels in Yemen.
The legislation has also drawn criticism from the Saudi government.
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