Sokolow et al v. Palestine Liberation Organization et al

Sokolow et al v. Palestine Liberation Organization et al was a civil case considered by US federal courts, in which the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority were found liable for the death and injuries of US citizens in a number of terrorist attacks in Israel from 2001 to 2004. The damages are to be $655.5 million, under a special terrorism law that provides for tripling the $218.5 million awarded by the jury in Federal District Court.[1] The plaintiffs were US citizens injured in terrorist attacks in Israel and US citizens who are relatives of those who were killed by these attacks. They sued Palestine Liberation Organization and Palestinian Authority under the Antiterrorism Act of 1991, demanding $1 billion or more in damages. On 31 August 2016, the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan dismissed the lawsuit on the grounds that US federal courts lacked overseas jurisdiction on civil cases.[2][3]

History

The lawsuit was brought in 2004 with respect to the following terrorist attacks:

Two elderly women were killed and 45 more people injured in a machine gun attack in downtown Jerusalem's Jaffa Street. The shooter, Said Ramadan, was a PA police officer. The attack was planned by Ahmed Barghouti, whose cousin Marwan Barghouti was a senior official in the PA's controlling Fatah party. PA records indicate that PA employees involved in the attack continued to receive pay and promotions. Ramadan was killed in the attack, but PA documents described him as a martyr who died "performing his national duty."

Wafa Idris became the first known female Palestinian suicide bomber, killing an 81-year-old man and wounding 150 others on Jaffa Street. Among the injured was lead plaintiff Mark Sokolow, his wife and daughters. Idris worked with an official in the PA's military intelligence office in planning the attack. That official later was promoted. Idris received martyr status which brought monthly payments to her family.

Three people are killed and 80 wounded in a suicide bombing on downtown Jerusalem's King George Street. The bomber was a PA police officer who had been arrested for plotting a terror attack a month earlier, but released by Palestinian security officials. He was assisted by a lieutenant in the PA's General Intelligence Service, who received money for the attack from Marwan Barghouti. The lieutenant, Abel Karim Aweis, later admitted his role in Israeli court. He stayed on the PA payroll and was promoted four times afterward. The bomber's family received martyr pay.

2002 French Hill suicide bombing

Nine people, including five Americans, were killed in a bombing at a Hebrew University cafeteria. Hamas took credit for the attack, but it was "planned and carried out by Marwan Barghouti, Ahmed Barghouti" and other PA employees, the complaint says. As in the King George Street bombing, PA officials arrested the bomber before the attack, only to release him. The bomber, Abdullah Barghouti, was provided a safe house and bomb-making materials by his relative, PA official Marwan Barghouti.

The PA's Ministry of Detainees' Affairs later gave Abdullah Barghouti's family monthly payments.

Eleven people were killed and 50 wounded in a suicide bombing on a Jerusalem bus. Four PA police and security officials later admitted to participating in the plot and making the bomb. The PA paid the families of the suicide bomber and those later jailed for their participation in the attack.

The trial in the Manhattan federal district court began on January 12, 2015, presided over by US Federal District judge George B. Daniels, after Daniels ruled against the PLO and PA's request for summary judgement for lack of jurisdiction.[4] [5]

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 had made payments to the families of suicide bombers.

On 23 February 2015 the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization were found liable by the jury. The damages were to be $655.5 million, under a special terrorism law that provides for tripling the $218.5 million. The Palestinian groups said in a statement that they intended to appeal the verdict, but not about their willingness or capacity to pay.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs said they could seek orders to have the defendants’ bank accounts frozen and to require them to turn over real estate and other property. The judgments could also be taken to other countries, where the defendants do business or have assets. In addition, Israel, as punishment for the Palestinians’ move in December 2014 to join the International Criminal Court, began withholding more than $100 million a month in tax revenue it collects on the Palestinians’ behalf and the plaintiffs could also go after those taxes.[6]

Opinions on the verdict

Michael Ratner has written that the US Court's ruling against the Palestinian Authority failed to treat Palestine as a state, immune, like Israel, from suits of this kind. He says that there is no jurisdiction over Palestine, that links between the murderers as the PNA unproven, that a fair jury was impossible to obtain in the U.S. and that the trial should not have taken place. It was, he added, both an obstacle to Palestinian victims seeking redress from Israel and a measure that held Palestinians to be collectively responsible for the acts of a few. Not many people, he argued, praise the verdict as a victory for human rights, for "... [in] the United States ... Palestinians never get justice. U.S. courts are close to their efforts at justice, despite the murders and killings by Israel, on a scale much more massive than those at issue in this trial ... Just think about Gaza — 500 children killed in the last attacks this summer, three attacks [in 2008-9, 2012 and 2014] killing ... thousands of civilians. No accountability for that. So when it comes to Palestine, our courts are closed for accountability against Israel. But our courts are wide open to Israel and its supporters when it's them going after Palestine and Palestinians. ... Congress will ... pass laws and statutes ... that allow people in the United States, citizens, to sue Palestinians. But those laws will exempt Israel". [7][8]

Appeal

On 31 August 2016, the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan overturned the verdict of the Manhattan federal district court and dismissed the lawsuit on the grounds that US federal courts lacked overseas jurisdiction on civil cases. The appeals court's decision was criticized by the lawyers and families of the victims but was praised by lawyers and representatives of the Palestinian government.[2][3]

References

External links

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