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Virtually bankrupt. Abbas
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US refuses to intervene in Palestinian damages suits

New York District Court suspends ruling ordering Palestinian Authority to pay hundreds of millions of dollars restitution to family of 2002 terror attack victim, pending new trial

WASHINGTON – A legal triumph for the Palestinian Authority: A US federal judge overturned a ruling under which the PA was made to pay $174 million to the family of Aaron Alice, who was killed in a 2002 suicide attack in Hadera.

 

US District Court Judge Victor Marrero ordered a new trial the Alice family case after reviewing documentation questioning the direct involvement of then-PA leader Yasser Arafat in ordering the attack, as well as several others which struck Israel at that time.

 

The ruling came as a great disappointment to dozens of American families who lost loved ones in terror attacks in Israel, and are currently enthralled in the various stages of damages suits against the PA.

 

The PA, however, is not completely in the clear: In order to ensure it will pay restitution to the victims should it be found liable for Aaron Alice's and other deaths at the end of the new trial, Judge Marrero's ruling stipulated that the PA must post close to $200 million in bonds.

 

The US administration made it possible for terror victims to seek damages from their assailants after the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise liner by a Palestinian terror group.

 

Faced with and onslaught of lawsuits by terror victims and their families, the PA has expresses concerns that is may find itself bankrupt if forces to pay restitutions.

 

Appealing to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that the work done by the US administration to help the PA get back on its financial feet, and push the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, may be in vain if the US funds funneled to it will end up being paid to the victims' families.

 

The PA further claimed that since it is a state on its own right, the US administration has no right to interfere in the matter. The PA refused to mount a defense in the Alice case and in its absentia the court ruled Yasser Arafat was personally evolved in ordering the 2002 attack, rendering a 2006 ruling ordering the PLO and PA to pay Alice's widow and six children the huge sum in compensation.

 

The American government has jurisdiction in the matter and can choose to intervene, but in a letter to Judge Marrero, the Justice Department said it would not interfere as of yet, but "will continue to monitor this and other cases like it."

 

AFP contributed to this report

 


פרסום ראשון: 03.29.08, 09:38
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