Saudi Arabia asked on Thursday to be removed as a defendant in a lawsuit brought by victims of the attacks in the United States on 11 September 2001.
Lawyer Michael Kellogg, acting on behalf of the Gulf state, told a judge in New York that Saudi Arabia had nothing to do with the attacks. The judge did not immediately rule on the matter.
In December 2013 Saudi Arabia was reinstated as a defendant in the case, after having been removed some nine years earlier by a judge who said the kingdom was protected from prosecution by sovereign immunity.
Kellogg argued that the 9/11 victims had failed to provide “admissible, concrete, competent evidence” that Saudi Arabia played a role in the 2001 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
He added that there was no evidence Riyadh knew in advance of the attacks.