Worker at LA-area mosque may be linked to 9/11 attack

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Could someone who worked at a Los Angeles-area mosque be linked to the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil? New allegations about the 9/11 attacks are coming from someone close to the classified investigation.

In the three years following the terror attacks the 9/11 Commission found no evidence the Saudi government or high-ranking Saudi officials funded Al Qaeda.

But John Lehman -- a former member of that investigative commission -- said a classified section of the investigation shows that as many as six Saudi individuals may have played a role in the attacks. One of those people, he said, is a man who worked at Culver City's King Fahad Mosque.

Mahomed Khan, who handles public relations for the King Fahad Mosque, said if that was the case, the man was clearly not a representative of the mosque.

Khan also questioned the timing of the new concern, pointing out that the 9/11 Commission wrapped up its investigation 12 years ago.

"You wonder, 'Does this have to do with the election cycle?' I'm not saying it is or isn't but why now? Why couldn't the commissioners deal with it back then?" he said.

But Lehman said the investigation didn't look hard enough into lower-level Saudi involvement. Former Federal Prosecutor Richard Ben-Veniste agreed

"We would not be so arrogant as to think that we, with our limited time and resources, have investigated every single aspect that there is to look at in the 9/11 disaster," he said.

Ben-Veniste and Lehman were calling for a new federal probe and the release of 28 pages of classified documents from the original investigation, even though Lehman admitted they contain no smoking gun.

The Saudi government supports releasing those pages as does Khan, but in situations like this, he worries about misguided backlash against Muslims.

"Whenever reports like this come up, we get negative calls, possible hate crimes go up, so that's the concern because everyone is vulnerable here," Khan said.