Federal Judge slams Facebook and its legal counsel for not taking terrorism seriously
Greetings from New York City, where I have been since Thursday evening and where I have been totally tied up with work. I have a few minutes now before a conference call - not enough to work but enough to post something.
On Thursday, a Federal Judge in Brooklyn told a shocked lawyer from Chicago's Kirkland & Ellis that the lawyer's client, Facebook, isn't doing enough to deter terrorists from using its site. And then the judge laid into the firm for sending a first-year associate (someone about four months out of law school at this time of year) alone to the hearing.
U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis in Brooklyn, New York, also
accused Facebook’s lawyers -- by sending a first-year associate to a
hearing -- of not taking seriously lawsuits with implications of
international terrorism and the murder of innocent people.
“I
think it is outrageous, irresponsible and insulting,” Garaufis told the
attorney Thursday. The judge ordered Kirkland & Ellis LLP, the law
firm representing Facebook, to send a more senior lawyer to the next
hearing on Sept. 28 because he wanted to “talk to someone who talks to
senior management at Facebook.”
Garaufis
is overseeing two lawsuits in which more than 20,000 victims of attacks
and their families accused Facebook of helping groups in the Middle
East such as Hamas.
The judge noted similar suits haven’t been
successful under U.S. law which insulates publishers from liability for
the speech of others. But he said that doesn’t mean Facebook shouldn’t
take it seriously and try to address the issue.
Isn’t the social
media platform “basically putting together people who’d like to be
involved in terrorism with people are are terrorists?” the judge asked.
“Doesn’t Facebook have some moral obligation to help cabin the kinds of
communications that appear on it?”
The judge didn’t stop there.
"Let’s put the law aside and talk
about reality,” Garaufis said, less than a week after a bomb rattled the
Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, injuring 29 people. “The reality is
that people are communicating through social media and the outcome of
these inquiries, be it Google or Facebook, has the potential of hooking
people up to do very dangerous, bad and harmful things in terms of
international and domestic terror."
Federal
judges have limited ability to address terrorism and don’t usually get
involved in such cases until someone is arrested and charged with a
crime, Garaufis said.
"Don’t you have a social responsibility as
citizens of the world without having these plaintiffs come to me in
Brooklyn?" he asked. “There are things you could do that don’t involve
the courts or the judicial system."
Facebook said it’s committed to making people feel safe using the social network.
“Our
Community Standards make clear that there is no place on Facebook for
groups that engage in terrorist activity or for content that expresses
support for such activity, and we take swift action to remove this
content when it’s reported to us,” the company said in a statement. “We
sympathize with the victims of these horrible crimes.”
A Kirkland & Ellis spokeswoman didn’t have an immediate comment on the judge’s remarks.
The page pictured above was deemed not to violate Facebook's community standards. But Twitter last week briefly suspended Professor Glenn Reynolds (known as Instapundit on social media) for making a sarcastic comment that didn't threaten anyone. Some 'community standards.'
PLO slams Ted Cruz for calling it a terror organization
Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.
The 'Palestine' Liberation Organization (PLO) has slammed Republican Presidential candidate and Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tx) for calling it a terror organization (Hat Tip: Jack W via Director Blue).
The Palestine Liberation
Organization on Thursday criticized Republican presidential candidate
Ted Cruz over a Senate hearing he oversaw on Palestinian and Iranian
terrorism that it called "biased and inflammatory."
In an unusually harsh statement issued
Thursday, the PLO said the Judiciary subcommittee hearing provided no
Palestinian viewpoint and conflated all Palestinians with terrorists.
The PLO expressed alarm at what it said was a growing trend in the
United States to "dehumanize" Palestinians.
In response, Cruz said, "It is not surprising a
terrorist organization like the PLO is upset with the truths that were
told at our hearing yesterday."
Cruz oversaw the Wednesday hearing titled
"Justice Forsaken: How the Federal Government Fails the American Victims
of Iranian and Palestinian Terrorism," in which several public
witnesses described acts of violence and complained about the Obama
administration, arguing that its Justice Department has failed to
prosecute terrorists who have killed and wounded Americans.
Cruz, the first-term senator from Texas,
opened the hearing with a vivid description of a Palestinian suicide
bomber attack on a Jerusalem street several years ago that killed and
wounded men, women and children.
Cruz spoke of "Americans who have suffered
greatly because of the horrific actions of Iranian and Palestinian
terrorists," and the recent surge of Palestinian terrorist attacks in
Israel.
"As bad as Palestinian terrorism has been, the
Iranian government has more American blood on its hands," said Cruz,
who reiterated his opposition to the recent international deal to curb
Iran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.
Among those who testified at the hearing was
Kenneth J. Stethem, whose brother, Robert, was killed by Hezbollah
terrorists during the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847.
"There has been no administration to date that
has supported Iran and the Palestinian terrorist organizations more
than the Obama administration," Stethem said in his prepared testimony.
And the 'Palestinian' response? Blame Israel, of course.
The PLO said the hearing
failed to mention "recent acts of Israeli incitement," including
killings and collective punishment of the Palestinian people.
"If there is a party to be condemned for their actions,
it is Israel, which continues to defy international law with impunity
because of the blind support it receives from people like Senator Cruz
and other senators," the organization said. "It is time for Israel
apologists on the Hill to put U.S. national interests ahead of those of
the current extreme right-wing government in Israel."
Sounds like Obama and Kerry wrote the PLO's statement for it....
Sens. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.) and Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) on Tuesday
unveiled a bill that would prevent the Obama administration from lifting
economic sanctions on Tehran until these U.S. terrorist victims are
paid for the crimes committed by Iranian-funded terrorist proxy groups,
such as Hezbollah, according to a copy of the legislation obtained by
the Washington Free Beacon.
“Iran-sponsored terrorists have killed more Americans than the Islamic State,” Kirk told the Free Beacon. “Families
of Americans killed by Iranian-backed terrorism have used U.S. laws to
take Iran to court and lawfully win approximately $43.5 billion in
unsatisfied damages, so if the United States fails to ensure Iran fully
pays these judgments before Iranian terror financiers get over $100
billion in sanctions relief, we risk emboldening Iran and other state
sponsors of terror to continue targeting and killing more Americans.”
Iran has been held legally liable by U.S. courts for the murder of
scores of Americans, according to official government estimates.
Iranian-backed terrorist groups, for example, have killed more than 700 Americans, including at least 290 in Lebanon
over the past several decades. This accounts for the 241 U.S. service
members murdered during the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing, which Iran
sponsored.
Attacks by Iran and its terrorist proxies additionally have killed at
least 500 Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2000, according to
intelligence officials.
U.S. courts have awarded the victims and their families more $46
billion in damages as a result of Iran’s terrorism, according to the
Congressional Research Service (CRS). Around $43.5 billion of this has
yet to be paid by Iran.
I hope that this time, we at least get to a vote in the Senate. What happened with the nuclear sellout was disgraceful, but at least there were no Americans who were directly and immediately affected by it. This could be worse. Let's at least make Obama feel the pain of exercising his veto.
Congress seeks to hold up Iran sanctions relief until victims of Iranian terror paid
Congress is seeking to hold up the release of moneys to Iran until American victims of Iranian-financed terror are paid some $43.5 billion in compensation. A bill to do just that has been introduced by Representative Patrick Meehan (R-Pa).
Let's go the videotape, and then we'll hear about the bill from Adam Kredo.
Yes, before you click the video, that's my friend Arnold Roth's daughter Malki HY"D (May God Avenge her blood), second row from bottom, second from right (first full picture in the row), who was murdered in the Sbarro terror attack.
Adam Kredo reports on the bill.
The bill, which is expected to be brought to the House floor for a
vote this week, would require Iran to first pay $43.5 billion in legal
penalties awarded by U.S. courts to American victims of Iranian
terrorism.
President Obama would then be in a position to either disregard the
requirement under his executive authority, thereby clearing the way for
Iran to immediately receive $150 billion, or force Tehran to negotiate
settlements for these terror victims.
The legislation, called the Justice for Victims of Iranian Terrorism Act, comes after a lawsuit
filed by U.S. terror victims that argue they should first be paid
damages before Iran sees a dime of the money promised by the Obama
administration.
The victims said they fear that if the money is first released to
Iran, they will never receive the billions in compensation awarded to
them by U.S. courts.
Meehan told the Washington Free Beacon that the legislation
would create a circumstance in which “the president must certify that he
believes it’s more important to pay money to the Iranian terrorists
than it is to compensate the victims of Iranian terror.”
The bill, he said, “would prevent the president from releasing any
sanctions unless or until the full damages, which have already been
awarded in American courts to victims of Iranian terror, are paid.”
“I’d just like to understand why [Obama] thinks it’s more important
to give money back to Iran than it is to first pay the victims of their
past terror acts,” said Meehan, who released a video late last week detailing the stories of several Americans harmed by Iranian-backed terrorism.
While the bill has garnered at least 75 co-sponsors in the House,
Meehan said he is not certain whether supporters will be able to achieve
a veto-proof majority.
After the nuclear sellout, just bringing it to a vote would be an accomplishment.
But you can bet that Obama will veto the bill if it ever passes. His legacy is more important than compensation to ordinary American terror victims. May he rot in hell.
The settlement was confirmed on Friday by Michael Elsner, a lawyer
for the plaintiffs, and a spokesman for Arab Bank. The terms were not
disclosed.
Elsner said the framework of the deal would be finalised over the next few months.
A trial had been scheduled to start on Monday to begin determining
how much the bank would have to pay the victims and their families.
The Jordan-based multinational lender was found liable by a US jury
in September 2014 for financing terrorism by transferring funds for
members of Hamas.
Approximately 500 US citizens had sued Arab Bank under the US
Anti-Terrorism Act, which permits US citizens to pursue claims arising
from international terrorism.
The plaintiffs included both victims of attacks carried out by Hamas and other groups, as well as family members of the victims.
At trial, lawyers for the plaintiffs said Arab Bank knowingly
maintained accounts for Hamas operatives and facilitated payments to
families of suicide bombers and those imprisoned or injured during a
Palestinian uprising beginning in 2000.
Arab Bank argued that it had followed proper screening procedures to
checked accounts and transactions against lists of designated terrorist
organisations.
Several other banks are facing similar claims in US courts under the
Anti-Terrorism Act, including Bank of China, Credit Lyonnais, HSBC and
Royal Bank of Scotland, among others.
The settlement, whose details were not disclosed, comes days before
the trial was set to enter its damages phase in federal court in
Brooklyn, according to the Associated Press.
In the trial, 300 victims of terrorism during the Second Intifada in
the early 2000s sued the bank, which was accused of helping Hamas
create a “death and dismemberment benefit plan” for dead terrorists. The
suit was first filed in 2004.
According to AP, the case was the first time a bank had been tried
under the Anti-Terrorism Act, which allows victims of attacks by United
States-designated terrorist organizations to seek damages.
'Death and dismemberment benefit plan.' Never heard that one before.
The Obama
administration urged a U.S. judge to "carefully consider" the
Palestinian Authority's financial condition in determining the size of
any bond it must post to appeal a jury's finding that it supported
terrorist attacks in Israel.
The U.S. Department of
Justice filed a notice of interest in the lawsuit in Manhattan federal
court late on Monday, after 10 American families in February won a $655
million verdict against the Palestine Liberation Organization and
Palestinian Authority.
The Justice Department said the government "strongly supports" allowing terrorism victims to vindicate their interests in court.
Deputy
Secretary of State Antony Blinken nonetheless asked U.S. District Judge
George Daniels to "carefully consider" how requiring a
multimillion-dollar bond could affect the Palestinian Authority's
viability, given its delicate finances.
The
Palestinian Authority's collapse "would undermine several decades of
U.S. foreign policy and add a new destabilizing factor to the region,
compromising national security," Blinken said.
Kent
Yalowitz, the families' lawyer, said he was disappointed by the State
Department position. He said that if the Palestinian Authority "has
enough money to pay convicted terrorists, it has enough to pay the
judgment in this case."
...
In
February, jurors found the PLO and Palestinian Authority liable for six
shootings and bombings between 2002 and 2004 in the Jerusalem area,
which have been attributed to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and Hamas.
Those attacks killed 33 people, including several U.S. citizens, and injured more than 450.
The jury awarded the families $218.5 million, a sum automatically tripled under a U.S. anti-terrorism law to $655.5 million.
The PLO and the Palestinian Authority want the judgment stayed pending appeal, with no requirement to post bond.
The
families counter that the defendants should deposit $30 million per
month with the court. At a July hearing, Daniels signaled he might
require a bond.
Leaving aside the obvious (maybe they should have thought of the possibility of being held accountable before they dispatched terrorists to attack Israelis), the 'Palestinian Authority' continues to pay 'salaries' to imprisoned terrorists, freed terrorists and the families of dead terrorists (whom they call 'martyrs') to this day. If they can do that, surely they can post a bond to ensure that their victims are also recompensed.
And if they cannot post a bond, let them pay the judgment.
The Obama administration should hang its head in shame over this one. But of course they won't.
It's come to this: Obama siding with 'Palestinians' against US citizen terror victims
In a lawsuit brought by American terror victims, guess which side the Obama administration is taking. You guessed it... the 'Palestinian' side.
The lawsuit was filed over a series of bombings and shootings in or
around Jerusalem that killed dozens of US citizens during the second Palestinian intifada, a decade ago.
The case was delayed for years while Palestinian lawyers tried to
challenge the American court’s jurisdiction, but last February, the
families won a $218.5 million judgment after a seven-week trial in
Manhattan Federal Court. The jury found that the PLO and Palestinian
Authority were responsible for a string of attacks from 2001 to 2004
that killed 33 and injured hundreds.
Unfortunately for the cash-strapped Palestinians, a 1992 law requires
damages in cases such as these, to be tripled, with interest on the
award, pushing it to as much as $1.1 billion.
The judgment amounts to nearly a third of the Palestinian Authority’s annual operating budget.
Palestinian leadership say they are not responsible “for the actions
of individuals” who killed or wounded Americans, and are appealing the
decision.
The Obama administration has reportedly signaled that it will
intervene on behalf of the Palestinians in this case over US citizens.
Late last month, the Department of Justice, which had
previously not been involved in the 11-year-old case, informed the court
it was considering filing a “statement of interest” in the case by Aug.
10, but officials would not elaborate. A source said the Department of
Justice was working with the State Department on the matter.
“As the filing states, the United States is considering whether to
submit a Statement of Interest in the [Sokolow v. Palestine Liberation
Organization] matter,” a DOJ spokeswoman told FoxNews.com. “Any filing
would be made on behalf of the United States, not on behalf of any other
party.”
The Palestinian leadership would not have to pay the award unless it
is upheld on appeal, but U.S. District Judge George Daniels said he may
require the Palestinians to post bond while the case works its way
through the process to show “some meaningful demonstration that the
defendant is ready and willing to pay the judgment.”
“An administration which claims to be fighting terror is planning to weigh in favor of the terrorists,” Yalowitz told FoxNews.com.
“If our government actually came in favor of convicted terrorists, it
would be a really sorry statement about the way our government treats
terror.”
The Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization
were found liable on Monday by a jury in Manhattan for their role in
knowingly supporting six terrorist attacks in Israel between 2002 and
2004 in which Americans were killed and injured.
...
The verdict ended a decade-long legal battle to hold the Palestinian
organizations responsible for the terrorist acts. And while the
decision was a huge victory for the dozens of plaintiffs, it also could
serve to strengthen the Israeli claim that the supposedly more moderate
Palestinian forces are directly tied to terrorism.
The
financial implications of the verdict for the defendants were not
immediately clear. The Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas, had
serious financial troubles even before Israel, as punishment for the
Palestinians’ move in December to join
the International Criminal Court, began withholding more than $100
million a month in tax revenue it collects on the Palestinians’ behalf.
The
verdict came in the seventh week of a civil trial in which the jury had
heard emotional testimony from survivors of suicide bombings and other
attacks in Jerusalem, in which a total of 33 people were killed and more
than 450 were injured.
“Money
is oxygen for terrorism,” Kent A. Yalowitz, a lawyer for the families,
said in a closing argument on Thursday, noting that the antiterrorism
law “hits those who send terrorists where it hurts them most: in the
wallet.”
...
The
defense had argued that their clients had nothing to do with the
attacks. Mark J. Rochon, a defense lawyer, told the jury on Thursday
that he did not want “the bad guys, the killers, the people who did
this, to get away while the Palestinian Authority or the P.L.O. pay for
something they did not do.”
Hanan
Ashrawi, a member of the P.L.O.’s executive committee who testified for
the defense, told the jury, “We tried to prevent violence from all
sides.”
But
citing testimony, payroll records and other documents, the plaintiffs
showed that many of those involved in the planning and carrying out of
the attacks had been employees of the Palestinian Authority, and that
the authority had paid salaries to terrorists imprisoned in Israel and
made martyr payments to the families of suicide bombers.
The 'Palestinian Authority' continues to pay 'salaries' to imprisoned terrorists, freed terrorists and the families of dead terrorists (whom they call 'martyrs') to this day. If this verdict does nothing other than to make the 'Palestinian Authority' stop that practice, that will accomplish a lot. Hopefully, the verdict will accomplish more.
And just to give you some idea of how small this country is... one of my son's study partners in yeshiva has spent the last two weeks in New York at the trial. His father HY"D (May God Avenge his blood) was murdered in one of the terror attacks that was the subject of the trial. This boy was a pre-schooler at the time.
By the way, all of the plaintiffs in the trial were US citizens.
NY Federal court orders PLO to stand trial for terrorism
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has ordered that the 'Palestine Liberation Organization' (PLO) be placed on trial next week for terrorism (Hat Tip: Gershon D).
A federal appeals court has chosen not to block a New York trial next week over a $1 billion lawsuit brought by U.S. terrorism victims against the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit of Appeals said Tuesday that the PA and PLO had not demonstrated any "exceptional circumstances" that would warrant blocking the trial.
The trial over litigation brought by victims of seven shootings and bombings near Jerusalem between January 2001 and February 2004 is scheduled to start Jan. 13. The attacks killed 33 people and wounded hundreds more, including scores of U.S. citizens.
Can't wait to hear what the State Department has to say about this.
It's been more than 18 years since Sara Duker of Teaneck, New Jersey and Matthew Eisenfeld of West Hartford, Connecticut boarded an 18 bus on a Sunday morning in Jerusalem. There's a picture of the bus above. I remember hearing Sara's and Matthew's story at the time - as relatively recent American immigrants (we had been here four and a half years), the image of two American kids becoming casualties of 'Palestinian' terrorism was seared into our conscience. After that bombing - which was reported without a bus number and which caused us to call our children's school to make sure they had gotten there that day - we took our kids off the buses for a while and chauffeured them everywhere. Other parents stopped letting their children ride the buses altogether, and there are now children here who don't know how to ride a bus alone anymore.
But back to Sara and Matthew. It's been 18 years. In those 18 years, they could have married (as they planned to do) and been the parents of teenagers by now. Instead, they are buried together in Connecticut. Mike Kelly reports that their parents - still anguished of course - are left to wonder what might have been.
The bombing in which Sara and Matthew died — and a series of three
similar bus bombings the next 10 days — irrevocably altered the
Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the already crumbling Oslo Peace
Accords, leaving behind deep fissures of mistrust that would never be
repaired.
Within days, President Bill Clinton called a meeting of Middle East
leaders to denounce terrorism. Within months, Israeli voters rejected
the pro-Oslo government of Prime Minister Shimon Peres in favor of the
more conservative Benjamin Netanyahu.
Back in Teaneck, however, Sara’s family faced far more personal
questions — the kind of questions that are common to victims of any
crime:
Why did this happen to someone I love?
I know I can’t bring her back. But is there anything I can do to
hold her killers accountable by labeling them for what they are —
cold-blooded terrorists?
...
The story of Sara Duker’s untimely death — along with the loss of
Matthew Eisenfeld and Alisa Flatow — still resonates today, not only in
its brutality but in the dogged efforts by other families of U.S. terror
victims to seek some measure of justice.
Last month, in a federal lawsuit filed by almost 300 other victims of
terrorism, a jury ruled that the Jordan-based Arab Bank illegally helped
to transfer money that financed suicide attacks by Hamas. Experts
predict that the penalty to be decided in a separate trial could exceed
$1 billion.
The template for that landmark verdict was set years earlier — quietly
and with little fanfare — in the lawsuits filed by the Duker, Eisenfeld
and Flatow families.
Those suits, however, were a last resort.
With the FBI and Justice Department reluctant to pursue criminal
indictments against their children’s killers, the families believed that
their only choice to try to force action was to go to court. Their
ultimate aim, they said, wasn’t about gaining money for themselves — it
was to point a finger of blame at Iran for providing the financing for
the attacks and, perhaps, to extract some punishment.
After a judge ruled that Iran was responsible for the bombings, the
Flatow family was awarded $247 million; the Dukers and Eisenfelds $327
million combined. But they received less than 10 percent — substantial
figures, but not enough to stop Iran from continuing to finance
terrorism.
For the families, however, no amount of money can ever replace their
children. As Arline Duker told me: “Having the money doesn’t make the
sadness go away.”
Because Sara and Matt spent their last moments together, side by side,
on that bus on Jaffa Road in Jerusalem, their parents decided that they
should remain together forever.
And so they were buried side by side, under a single headstone, in a cemetery in the hill country just outside Hartford, Conn.
A year ago, on a blue-sky summer afternoon, Arline, along with Len and
Vicki Eisenfeld, took me to the grave. They placed rocks on the
headstone — a Jewish custom. They took a few photos. Then they stood
together in silence, remembering for a few seconds how Sara and Matt
were so in love and so happy to be planning their future.
“I wonder what they would have become,” Arline said.
Her voice fell off, then she added:
“We’ll never know.”
There's much more (including the likelihood that Yasser Arafat knew about the attack in advance). Read the whole thing.
A U.S. jury said
on Monday Arab Bank Plc provided material support to Hamas, and must
therefore compensate the victims of two dozen attacks the Islamic
militant group allegedly carried out in Israel and the Palestinian
territories.
Jurors needed less than two
days to deliberate, following a six-week trial in Brooklyn federal court
that lawyers described as the first terrorism financing civil case to
reach trial in the United States.
Nearly
300 Americans who were either victims or related to victims of the
attacks had sued Arab Bank in 2004, accusing it of violating the
Anti-Terrorism Act, which lets victims of U.S.-designated foreign
terrorist organizations seek damages. A trial on damages will be
scheduled for a later date.
It's come to this: Terror victims win legal battle against Government of Israel in US court
The parents of terror victim Daniel Wultz HY"D (May God Avenge his blood) and 22 other families of American victims of terror in Israel have won a legal victory against the Government of Israel in an American court.
The lawsuits are in connection to attacks in Israel,
against Americans, between 2003 and 2008 and the ruling in the context
of the Wultz case (one of a number of parallel cases, this one on behalf
of their murdered son Daniel) and made in favor of a motion to
intervene filed by NGO Shurat Hadin, who represents 22 additional
victims' families.
The bottom-line on the actual decision handed down late Friday, and
as yet unreported elsewhere, by Washington DC federal court Judge
Reggie Walton, was that he would not decide whether the case's key
witness, former Israeli government agent Uzi Shaya, would need to
testify in the case, but would leave that decision to New York federal
court Judge Shira Scheindlin.
The decision is potentially huge, as the Israeli government and the
bank had fought with all of their might to keep this issue in
Washington DC, knowing that Judge Scheindlin has essentially already
ordered Shaya to testify.
Shaya's testimony could break the case open for the Wultz's, and
for the 22 other American victims' families represented by Shurat Hadin,
seriously concerning China, and therefore, seriously concerning the
Israeli government which (despite alleged promises to help the victims)
has turned against the case.
The plaintiffs allege that Israel turned against the case in
mid-November 2013 to maintain Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's past
state visit to China and out of concern of business interests with
China, while the PMO has said that its reasons for blocking Shaya from
testifying relate to preserving classified national security information
and international cooperation in fighting terror financing.
Procedurally, Israel, the Wultz's and Shurat Hadin all filed
extensive legal briefs, with Shurat Hadin's intervenor motion being
partially granted by the court to have the issue decided by Scheindlin.
Israel had argued that certain rules about which court hears a case
mandated that Walton hear the case and that the plaintiffs had not
properly communicated with Israel about Shaya's testimony.
Walton rejected these procedural arguments saying that Israel's
arguments were based on old rules which have been amended, eliminating
Israel's procedural arguments.
The good guys win one. But it's sad that it's come to this.
Here's a very lengthy post about a lawyer's efforts to go after the New York branch of Jordan's Arab Bank for financing terrorism. Here's the key passage:
What Osen found particularly galling was that much of the money that
flowed to these families and groups passed through New York, where the
Arab Bank’s dollar-denominated transactions were cleared. It appeared
Arab Bank was facilitating massive amounts of terror financing from
Madison Avenue, right under the noses of federal regulators and the US
government.
Shortly after the bombing of bus no. 6 a representative from “The
Organization of Martyr Families” telephoned Bassam Takruri’s parents. He
told Takruri’s mother to open an account at the Arab Bank so the family
could receive its reward. Soon after the account was open, the first
$200 arrived by direct transfer, a process repeated every month for a
year. When, a few weeks after the attack, Israeli bulldozers razed the
family’s home to the ground, they moved into an apartment paid for by
the group, a portrait of their martyr son hanging over the sofa.
It never occurred to Takruri’s father not to accept the funds or turn down the offer of a place to live.
“We needed the money,” he told Der Spiegel. “We suddenly no longer had a house.”
Now that Osen understood how the money flowed, he needed a theory of
liability that would enable him to bring suit against the bank. It
didn’t take him long to settle on the US Anti-terrorism Act,
which Congress passed into law shortly after the events of September
11, 2001. It made it possible for the families or heirs of an American
injured by an act of terrorism to sue in any appropriate district court
of the United States and recover “threefold the damages he or she
sustains and the cost of the suit, including attorney’s fees.” One key
aspect of the Act deals with terror financing. Osen believed that the
bank violated the law by soliciting, collecting, transmitting,
disbursing, and providing the financial resources that allowed Hamas and
its affiliated organizations to flourish and engage in a campaign of
terror.
In the past, American courts awarded billions of dollars in damages
against Iran for sponsoring terrorist groups, but victims have had
difficulty collecting because the US State and Justice departments
resisted seizing foreign government assets. Because of a lack of
diplomatic relations, Iran had few assets in America, and what it had
were embassies and the like — nothing that could be seized. Osen was
sure a judgment against a foreign bank, especially one with assets in
the United States, would reap different results. You couldn’t alter the
nation of Iran’s behavior by suing it, but you could deter commercial
entities from aiding terrorism by holding them accountable and hitting
them on their bottom lines.
A US trial court has ordered Stuart Levey, former Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence within the United States Department of the Treasury, to either testify in the case of Wultz v. Bank of China by January 22, or to show cause why he should not have to testify.
Former first Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence
Stuart Levey left government service after around a decade in 2011, but
according to Shurat Hadin – Israel Law Center, various disclosed
Wikileaks documents show that, while in government, he had meetings with
the bank in which he warned them that their banking services were indirectly aiding and abetting Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror operations in Israel.
The order is part of a case by the NGO (on behalf of 22 terror
victims’ families), and a parallel case by the family of victim Daniel
Wultz, against the bank for its indirect involvement in terror attacks
in Israel against Americans in 2006-2007.
Such evidence would harm
the bank’s defense that it did not know its accounts were being used by
the terror groups until a much later date.
Shurat Hadin expects
the US to try to block the deposition, though Levey is no longer in
government service. Certain legal principles sometimes empower
governments to hold back former officials from giving confidential
information obtained during their public service.
Last week,
Shurat Hadin retained a former Bush homeland security official to argue
the issue of whether a federal court in Washington DC will order former Israeli government agent Uzi Shaya to testify regarding his alleged warnings to the bank about its terror connections.
I find incredible the extent to which the American and Israeli governments are attempting to prevent recovery from the supporters of terrorism.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu promised a terror victim's family,
through a telephone call from Jordana Cutler of his office, that he
would allow former government agent Uzi Shaya to testify against the Bank of China in a major US terror financing case, according to a response filed by the family's lawyers on Tuesday.
The
response said that the telephone call was from Cutler in Israel to the
parents of terror victim Daniel Wulz in Florida in April 1, 2012.
Also, on May 14, 2012, then Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren
called US Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen to confirm that Shaya would
testify - all of this after Ros-Lehtinen had personally delivered
Netanyahu a letter from the Wultz family in March 2012, said the
response.
...
Shaya's testimony was planned to be a major part of the terror victims families' case against the bank.
More
specifically, he was due to testify about Israeli warnings to China
that the bank was being used to fund attacks on civilians in Israel.
...
The Wultz's also discussed personal communications in which they say
they were encouraged to pursue the case by senior Israeli government and
intelligence officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
former Mossad chief Meir Dagan, former National Security Council head
Yaacov Amidror and Shaya himself.
In addition, the response says
that the government actively participated in preparing Shaya to be
deposed in the case, including by arranging a face-to-face meeting
between Daniel Wultz's father, Yekutiel (Tuly) Wultz, and Shaya.
It
continued stating that the government directed Shaya to "review
government files, instructed Shaya to meet with senior government
lawyers, and prepared a letter that set the government's ground rules
for Shaya’s testimony."
Further, the response says that the
government provided the Wultzes bank account numbers and details about
how money was being laundered for Palestinian terrorists through the
bank.
Most importantly, says the response, the government
disclosed "the content of discussions between Israeli officials and
officials of the People’s Republic of China" which made filing the case
possible.
In related developments, Shurat Hadin, an NGO
representing 22 families of victims in a parallel case, demanded the
depositions of Israeli Ambassador to China Matan Vil'nai and Amidror.
The brief filed Tuesday by David Boies, lead attorney for the
Wultzes, states "the State of Israel should not be allowed to sabotage a
case, which it set in motion in the courts of the United States to
advance its own national agenda, by using the expansive pretense of
national security – an interest that it has never previously raised
during the five-year pendency of this lawsuit, or in any similar case."
Much more than that, Mr. Boies (whose name I recognize from my days practicing law in New York in the 80's and early 90's). The State of Israel should not be trying to block victims of terror attacks in Israel from seeking justice through American courts whether or not the State of Israel had a role in setting the case in motion. We're just plain taking the wrong side in this case. And it's shameful. Downright shameful.
Late Friday afternoon, Israel blocked one of its agents from testifying in a lawsuit against the Bank of China. The lawsuit accuses the bank of financing the terrorists who murdered 16-year old Daniel Wultz of Florida in 2008.
Israel filed a motion on late Friday in a federal court in Washington, DC
to block former Israeli agent Uzi Shaya from testifying against the Bank of
China in a major terror-financing case.
Shaya's testimony was planned to
be a major part of the terror victims' and victims families' case against the
bank.
Shurat Hadin - Israel Law Center, representing 22 of the victims,
accused Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of "turning his back" on the victims
of terror by blocking Shaya, who has publicly said he wished to testify, from
testifying because of external considerations relating to Israeli-Chinese
relations.
The witness has already filed an affidavit in the case
stating that he was present at key meetings between Israeli and Chinese
officials, including officials from the Bank of China, in 2005 in which
the Israeli officials provided evidence and notice to the bank and to
China that Islamic Jihad and Hamas were using the bank to launder and
transfer funds.
Shaya's testimony is a primary source of evidence
which could disprove the bank's claim that it did not have notice of
the terror financing activities until it was sued.
Previous posts on this tragic story here and here. On whose side is our government anyway?
China trying to cover up warning Bank was being used to finance terror
This case seems to get more outrageous by the minute.
You might recall that the government of China is pressuring Prime Minister Netanyahu to prevent an Israeli intelligence officer from testifying about the involvement of the Bank of China in financing the Tel Aviv suicide bombing that murdered 16-year old Floridian Daniel Wultz HY"D (May God Avenge his blood). Wultz succumbed to injuries sustained in a
Tel Aviv suicide bombing in April 2006, while he and his father were visiting for Passover. You may recall that a
'Palestinian' terror leader referred to Wultz as "the best target we can dream of."
The government of China is the majority shareholder in the Bank of China, so the lawsuit - which has been brought in the United States - is essentially against the Chinese government.
The court transcript from a hearing on Friday before US District
Court Judge Shira Scheindlin in Manhattan indicated that at some later point,
the Bank of China was in possession of an internal Chinese government letter
recommending that the various agencies involved in the issue deny that the 2005
meeting had occurred.
The implied legal purpose of such a denial would be
for the Bank of China to deny that the Chinese government or the bank had any
prior notice from Israel, other than the lawsuit itself, that the bank was being
used as a money-laundering hub for terrorist financing for Islamic Jihad and
Hamas.
If such a denial could be pulled off, then even if the bank was
being used by Islamic Jihad and Hamas, it could be difficult or impossible to
prove the bank had any criminal intent.
Another reason the bank and China
would have wanted to deny the meeting’s occurrence would be to block Israeli
intelligence official Uzi Shaya from testifying in the case about what happened
at the meeting.
Previously, Shurat HaDin – Israel Law Center head Nitsana
Dershan-Leitner told the Post that she could be compelled by the court to
testify that the government broke its promise to offer Shaya (she referred to
him only as the witness, but his name appears in the public record), as the key
witness, to testify about having put China and the bank on notice at the 2005
meeting.
...
At the hearing, Bank of China lawyer Mitchell
Berger still protested that no one from the bank was present at the meeting and
that the bank had no record of the meeting.
Berger and lawyer Lanier
Saperstein were forced, however, to admit that the 2005 meeting took place,
whether a bank representative attended or not.
Also, the lawyers appeared
uncomfortable explaining the letter suggesting that the meeting’s occurrence be
denied and the fact exploited by the plaintiff’s lawyer Lee Wolosky – that the
Chinese government is the majority shareholder of the bank.
Based on the
majority ownership, arguments could be made that if China was on notice, then
the bank was also on notice, or should have been.
I must be missing something here. Wultz was an American citizen. His parents are American citizens. This case is pending in an American court. It's no secret that the Chinese government is pressuring Bibi not to let Shaya testify. Why is there no pushback from the US government? Why isn't the US government pushing Bibi to let Shaya testify? Isn't our alliance with the US still more valuable than our trade relations with China?
China pressuring Israel to drop support for Wultz family lawsuit
I'm sure many of you also recall the murder of 16-year old American Daniel Wultz
from Florida (pictured, top left) HY"D (may God avenge his blood) in a
Tel Aviv suicide bombing in April 2006, while he and his father were visiting for Passover. You may recall that a
'Palestinian' terror leader referred to Wultz as "the best target we can dream of."
In May of 2012, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia awarded Wultz's parents and siblings $332 million from Iran and Syria for providing material support to the Islamic Jihad suicide bomber who carried out the attack.
Daniel’s father Yekutiel “Tuly” Wultz, who was
seriously wounded in the attack; his mother, Sheryl; and his siblings Amanda and
Abraham brought the civil lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of
Columbia, under powerful US anti-terrorism laws that permit American civilians
to sue sovereign states who sponsor acts of terror.
Via their lawyers –
New York attorney Robert Tolchin and Tel Aviv attorney Nitsana Darshan- Leitner
– the Wultz family alleged that the Syrian and Iranian governments, both of
which the US has designated as state sponsors of terrorism, provided Islamic
Jihad with the material support and resources it needed to carry out the deadly attack.
The court learned that Daniel had been conscious immediately
after the bombing and up until his death, and had suffered extreme physical and
emotional pain both because he knew the horrific extent of his injuries and
because he was aware he would die from them.
The 16-year-old suffered
wounds including severe bleeding from multiple shrapnel wounds, a perforated
bowel and multiple infections, including gangrene.
In their fight to save
his life, surgeons at Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Hospital removed several of Daniel’s
organs, and amputated two fingers and part of his right leg, but the teenager
succumbed to his injuries and died on May 14, 2006.
His father, who was
sitting with Daniel at the time of the bombing, endured extensive physical
injuries as well as severe psychological damage. He still suffers pain and
post-traumatic stress disorder, including terrifying nightmares and daily
flashbacks of the attack.
The other members of the Wultz family,
including Daniel’s mother, suffered serious psychological and emotional damage
as a result of the bombing.
In addition to Iran and Syria, the Wultz
family’s lawsuit named as defendants the Iranian Ministry of Information and
Security, the Syrian Ministry of Defense, Syrian Military Intelligence and the
Syrian Air Force Intelligence Directorate.
Wultz's parents are now suing the Bank of China for its alleged part
in the attack, a lawsuit which hinges on the testimony of a former
Israeli intelligence official, scheduled to testify in a New York
federal court in July.
The Wall Street Journal
quoted the plaintiffs as saying the official is expected to testify
that at a 2005 meeting, Israeli officials told China that Bank of China
accounts were being used to fund terror groups including the Islamic
Jihad, but they refused to close the accounts.
The Wultzes,
however, are saying that China is pressuring Netanyahu not to allow the
former Israel intelligence official to testify, amid growing trade with
China, worth billions of dollars annually to the Israeli economy.
The
paper cited a congressional staffer who has coordinated between the
Wultzes and the Israeli government as saying the Prime Minister's Office
is now undecided about giving the former intelligence official
permission to testify, despite previous commitments to do so.
US
Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen wrote a letter to Netanyahu this week
on behalf of the Wultzes, imploring Netanyahu to allow the official to
testify, according to the Journal.
"We
are aware of mounting pressure by the BOC and other Chinese
interests…to interfere with the US proceedings and the deposition," she
wrote, adding that by allowing the official to testify, Netanyahu would "
reaffirm Israel's solemn commitment to the victims of terror to ensure
that justice be done."
US judge backs 'Palestinian Authority' bid to suppress evidence in suicide bombing
On Saturday night of February 16, 2002, I was driving to the Mother and Child Convalescent Home in Telz Stone to bring my wife and newborn son (son #4, child #7) home for the latter's circumcision when I heard of a suicide bombing in a pizzeria in Karnei Shomron, a town in Samaria where we know several people. Two young teenagers HY"D (May God Avenge their blood) were murdered; 16-year old Rachel Thaler (pictured above), whose father is an American citizen, and 15-year old Keren Shatsky, whose parents are both American citizens.
The two families sued the 'Palestinian Authority' in the United States for damages resulting from pain and suffering and for the loss of consortium from their daughters. The two families produced a memo written by the 'Palestinian Authority' with six crucial facts that tied the terror organization to the case. Now, incredibly, a Federal Judge in Washington has ruled that the memo is 'privileged information' and must be returned to the 'Palestinian' terror organization or destroyed.
The document — accidentally handed over to lawyers suing the
authority for $300 million on behalf of the teens’ parents — reveals a
“close relationship” between the bomber and a captain in the Palestinian
Authority security forces who planned the terror attack, court papers
say.
The two-page memo, written in April 2012 by Maj. Ziad Abu
Hamid of the authority’s General Intelligence Service, also details “at
least six other critical facts” about the 2002 bombing and “clearly
establishes the defendants’ material support and liability,” the federal
court filing says.
But Washington, DC, federal Judge Richard Leon ordered the memo
returned or destroyed after the authority’s lawyers claimed it was
“privileged and protected” information.
Scott Shatsky, 60, the Brooklyn-born father of one victim, called the decision “incomprehensible.”
“It
makes me feel that justice is not being done,” the Brighton Beach
native said. “Maybe I’m missing something, but to me it’s just
outrageous.”
The plaintiffs’ lawyers have yet to comply with Leon’s Jan. 2 order and last week asked him to stay it pending appeal.
“Defendants’ illegitimate cover-up efforts must not be permitted with impunity,” lawyers David Schoen and Robert Tolchin wrote.
If returned or destroyed, “this critically important evidence of murder will likely be lost forever,” they said.
“It
would also deprive Congress of the kind of evidence it must have to
evaluate whether to continue funding these defendants, only to see the
money go to support and reward terrorism against Americans.”
The memo hasn’t been made public, and a copy was sealed.
But court papers say it links Sadeq Hafez, an operative for the Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine terror group, to Raed Nazal, “who
was both a salaried officer in the PA’s security services and a leader
of the PFLP cell in Qalqilya,” a Palestinan city in the West Bank.
Unbelievable. The terror groups get better protection from the US courts than the terror victims. What could go wrong?
For those who are wondering, yes, I'm still sick and that's why posting has been so light today. I've been out of the house twice to go say Kaddish for my father and I'm about to go out for the third time.
The family of a Weston teen killed in a 2006 suicide bombing in Israel has won a $332 million court judgment against the governments of Syria and Iran for sponsoring the terrorist group responsible for the attack.
On Monday, a federal judge in Washington ordered the judgment in a lawsuit brought by the family of Daniel Wultz, a 16-year-old who was among 11 people killed by a suicide bomber who attacked a Tel Aviv restaurant on April 17, 2006. Daniel, a student at David Posnack Hebrew Day School in Plantation, was visiting Tel Aviv with his father, Yekutiel “Tuly” Wultz, who also was injured in the blast.
“We don’t look for any revenge,” Tuly Wultz said Tuesday. “Our purpose in our fight is to fight terrorism. We don’t want any more Daniels to die.”
Investigators tied the bombing to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a terrorist group based in Syria’s capital, Damascus, and which claimed responsibility for the attack. Lawyers for the Wultz family presented evidence that the group has received financing and other support from both the Iranian and Syrian governments over the years — making them liable for Daniel’s death.
The lawsuit was brought under a special provision of federal law that allows U.S. citizens to bring claims against foreign governments for terrorist acts. Some $300 million of the judgment was in punitive damages designed to punish Iran and Syria for their roles in the bombing.
There's much more about Daniel Wultz and his family here.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
