Top Iranian Official Mohammad-Javad Larijani on Claims in U.S. 9/11 Report: In Some Cases, We Allowed Al-Qaeda Members to Pass Through Iran without Stamping Their Passport

Senior Iranian official Mohammad-Javad Larijani referred to the U.S. 9/11 Commission Report, and said that in some cases, Al-Qaeda members travelling from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan and elsewhere were allowed to pass through Iran without having their passports stamped. Larijani, who heads Iran's Human Rights Council and is a top adviser to Supreme Leader Khamenei, said that the Iranian government had agreed to this request, because they were in transit and would be in Iran "for only two hours." The interview, held with Iran's Channel 2 TV, was posted on YouTube.

Mohammad-Javad Larijani: "The [U.S.] commission that wrote the detailed 9/11 report was headed by Lee Hamilton and people like him. I think that in pages 240-241 of the report... There were two or three pages that dealt with Iran. They raised a question regarding Iran's role in those events. According to that group of reports, Al-Qaeda members who wanted to go from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan or elsewhere would arrive either by flight or by land, and would ask at the border not to have their passport stamped. They said that if the Saudi government realized that they had visited Iran, it would cause them trouble. In some cases, the Iranian government agreed to this request, because they were in transit and would be [in Iran] for only two hours. Nevertheless, we had information about their entry and exit. [The U.S. report concluded] that Iran had somehow collaborated with Al-Qaeda."