Fatah and the Palestinian Authority ,won a victory in US courts today, as a $200 million dollar judgment against them in favor of a widow and her six children for complicity in the terrorist murder of their father in Israel was vacated to allow a new trial.
You'll remember that that the Palestinians had been lobbying the Bush Administration to intervene in favor of the Palestinian Authority to give it immunity from judgments already entered in US courts against them for the murder of US citizens...and after wrestling with the matter for awhile,the Bush Administration declined to intervene - at least formally.
However, they DID note in a statement to the court that the Bush Administration was was concerned that lawsuits by victims of terrorism could harm the "financial and political viability" of the Palestinian Authority..and that was all it took for the judge, Victor Marrero to make the ruling for a new trial.
Such rulings are rare, and the judge, U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero, said that he would vacate the previous legal victory only if the Palestinian Authority put up a $192.7 million bond to ensure that it does not default again if it loses in court. In a ruling Wednesday, he also ordered the Palestinians to reimburse the plaintiffs for previous legal expenses.
But Marrero's decision gives the Palestinian government hope that it can escape from lawsuits that its officials said threatened to bankrupt it. Top Palestinian officials, including Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, had urged Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to intervene in the case.
Leslye Knox, a 46-year-old mother of six children and widow of Aharon Ellis, had sued under a law passed by Congress in 1990 after the murder of Leon Klinghoffer by terrorists who seized the Achille Lauro cruise ship. Ellis, a U.S. citizen, was shot and killed along with five other people by a Palestinian militant in 2002 in Hadera, Israel.
The Palestinian Authority initially argued that it had sovereign immunity, meaning that as a state it was beyond the reach of the U.S. legal system. But U.S. courts rejected that claim, noting that Palestine is not a state.
With the Palestinian Authority refusing to defend itself in court, a federal judge in 2006 ordered the PLO and the Palestinian Authority to pay Knox and other Ellis relatives nearly $174 million. Nothing has been paid. Marrero ordered a $192.7 million bond to also cover interest.
It never ends with these scum. And to me,it's absolutely amazing that our president,who once said `You're either with us or with the terrorists' could side with them against an American widow and her six children.
As I've said before, for all my disagreements with him,I used to at least think he was a decent man, at the core.
Speaking of indecent,here once again is the contact information for Mark Rachon at Miller and Chevalier, the legal cockroach who is representing the Palestinians in trying to defraud widows and orphans out of their just compensation. I invite members of Joshua's Army to let him know what you think of him..just keep it relatively civil:
inquiries@milchev.com
Washington, DC
655 Fifteenth Street, N.W.
Suite 900
Washington, DC 20005-5701
Phone: 202-626-5800
Fax: 202-626-5801
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