5/10/2011
(An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Sudan is the only government still included in the case. Iran is also included. The version also said the U.S. government has asserted that the defendants continue to provide funding to al Qaeda. The assertion applies to only some of the defendants.)
NEW YORK, May 10 (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden is dead, but the search for al Qaeda's funding sources is only now starting to gain momentum.
Litigation brought by victims of the Sept. 11 attacks was consolidated in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in 2003. It has been slowed by the deaths of two presiding judges and by motions that have eliminated scores of foreign governments, banks, and purported terrorist fronts as defendants.
Now, almost a decade after the attacks, lawyers for family members of Sept. 11 victims have finally begun to gather evidence directly from groups they accuse of financing al Qaeda. U.S. District Judge George Daniels last October authorized the victims' lawyers to start collecting financial records and other evidence from such groups as the International Islamic Relief Organization, the Muslim World League, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, and the al-Haramain USA Foundation. The U.S. government has cited all those groups as conduits of al Qaeda funding.
"The cost of maintaining a global infrastructure to support acts of terror is massive," said Sean Carter of Cozen O'Connor, whose firm represents insurance companies and other commercial plaintiffs. "Al Qaeda relied on such a global infrastructure to plan, coordinate, and execute its acts."
Carter said lawyers for the victims have demanded not only records of the defendants' finances -- including their sources of funding and outgoing payments -- but also all records of their relationships with alleged al Qaeda associates. The deadline for the groups to turn over such materials is August. Plaintiffs lawyers said they also plan to depose officials from the defendant organizations beginning this summer. A trial date could be as early as 2012.
STILL FUNDING AL QAEDA
According to Carter and other victims' lawyers, including Robert Haefele of Motley Rice and James Kreindler of Kreindler & Kreindler, the U.S. government has asserted as recently as 2009 that some of the remaining defendants in their civil cases continue to provide financial support to al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Diplomatic dispatches released by Wikileaks support that assertion. In a memo about Saudi Arabia's efforts to restrict the flow of funds from Saudi-based charities, a State Department official wrote that Riyadh had failed to cut off funds from multilateral organizations such as the International Islamic Relief Organization, Muslim World League, and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth. "Intelligence suggests that these groups continue to send money overseas and, at times, fund extremism overseas," the memo, dated Dec. 28, 2009, said.
Osama bin Laden's death will have little effect on the litigation, according to lawyers for both the victims and for bin Laden family interests. Allegations against a company controlled by bin Laden's family, the Mohammed bin Laden Co, have already been dismissed, as have allegations against several of bin Laden's relatives. A motion to dismiss the allegations against another company controlled by the bin Laden family, Saudi bin Laden Group, is pending before Judge Daniels.
An attorney for the bin Laden family entities, James Gauch of Jones Day, said the businesses have no ties to the financing of terrorism. "The plaintiffs' lawyers won't accept that," Gauch said. The family expelled Osama bin Laden from the businesses in the early 1990s, and yet victims' lawyers "keep trying to make the allegation that the expulsion wasn't real," Gauch said.
EXCEPT SUDAN AND IRAN, FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS DISMISSED
Only a dozen defendants remain of the 300 originally named by lawyers for the victims.
Most of the foreign governments and officials, including Saudi Arabia and Iraq, were dismissed from the litigation because foreign governments have broad protection from civil liability in U.S. courts. Sudan and Iran, however, remain defendants in the case. If southern Sudan splits from the north, after voting to secede in February, plaintiffs' lawyers may be able to obtain additional information about Sudan's alleged financial sponsorship of terrorism, said victims' counsel Kreindler.
Also still in the case is the Dubai Islamic Bank. Several other banks, including Arab Bank and National Commercial Bank, and Saudi American Bank were dismissed.
The International Islamic Relief Organization and the Muslim World League are represented in the funding litigation by Martin McMahon of McMahon and Associates, who did not return a call for comment. Nor did counsel for the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, Omar Mohammedi of O'Bryan Baun Karamanian. Alan Kabat, who represents al-Haramain USA, said his client disputes allegations of helping to fund terrorism. "We look forward to showing there's no proof of that at the summary judgment stage," he said.
The case is in Re: Terrorist Attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 03-MD-1570.
(Reporting by Alison Frankel)
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