9/11 Widow Terry Strada Claims US Is Shielding Saudi Arabia 25 Years After Attacks, Calls on Vance to Act

Terry Strada, who lost her husband in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, used Friday’s 25th anniversary commemoration at Ground Zero to renew her charge that Saudi Arabia has still not been held accountable for the attacks.

Speaking to families, survivors and officials gathered in Lower Manhattan, Strada also criticized the U.S. government, accusing successive administrations of “protecting” Saudi Arabia while failing those most directly affected by 9/11.

“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia fomented a rancid culture of anti-American terrorism around the globe, and then sent its agents to support the radical Islamist hijackers so they could attack you and all of our loved ones,” said Strada, the national chair of 9/11 Families United.

“But for 25 years, administration after administration, including leaders in front of us here today, chose to protect the Saudis instead of standing with the 9/11 families,” Strada added.

Strada directed part of her remarks to Vice President JD Vance, the highest-ranking Trump administration official present at the Ground Zero ceremony.

President Donald Trump marked the anniversary separately with remarks at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia.

“It has been one betrayal after another. President Trump can still change that. Tell the Saudis to stop lying. Tell them that if they want to be friends with the USA, they cannot continue to deny all of this,” Strada said. “Vice President Vance, thank you for being here today. Please carry that message back. Stand with the families. Stand with the survivors. Stand with Americans.”

Strada’s husband, Tom Strada, was on the 104th floor of the North Tower when American Airlines Flight 11 hit the building, she told WPTV during an interview on the 20th anniversary of the attacks.

Tom Strada, 41, was a Cantor Fitzgerald employee. Just days before 9/11, he and Terry had brought their third child home from the hospital. After the plane struck the tower, he called his wife and told her he was making his way toward the stairwell.

In the years since her husband’s death, and the deaths of nearly 3,000 others at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and aboard the hijacked planes, Strada has emerged as a prominent voice pressing for transparency and accountability over the Sept. 11 attacks.

Strada is among thousands of Sept. 11 family members and survivors who sued Saudi Arabia, alleging the kingdom provided material support to the al Qaeda hijackers. Saudi Arabia has repeatedly denied the allegations.

During her remarks Friday, Strada reminded the crowd that a federal judge ruled last August there was “reasonable evidence” that two Saudi government employees supported two future al Qaeda hijackers who came to the United States in early 2000 and took flight lessons.

The judge, George B. Daniels, allowed the lawsuit to go forward, denying Saudi Arabia’s attempt to dismiss it.

For more than a decade after the Sept. 11 attacks, victims’ families were barred from pursuing a lawsuit against a foreign government because of sovereign immunity protections.

That changed in September 2016, when Congress passed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), allowing Americans to sue foreign governments accused of providing material support for terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.

In her speech, Strada criticized President Barack Obama for vetoing JASTA.

At the time, he argued the legislation went too far by threatening “to strip all foreign governments of immunity from judicial process in the United States based solely upon allegations by private litigants.”

Congress overrode his veto days later, making JASTA law and paving the way for the lawsuit against Saudi Arabia to be filed in March 2017. The case remains pending in federal court.