Posted on 05/16/2012 8:58:03 AM PDT by ilcenter
A Washington, DC, court has awarded $332 million in damages to an American-Jewish family whose 16-year-old son was killed in a 2006 suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. The court found Syria guilty of having supported the Palestinian terror group behind the attack and thus ordered Damascus to pay the damages.
“It’s a great feeling. Justice was done for the terror victims,” said activist attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, who heads Shurat HaDin — Israel Law Center, Tuesday. The Israeli civil rights organization sues terror groups and their sponsors in courtrooms worldwide and helped the bereaved Wultz family in their legal struggle, which ended this week. The amount of $332 million awarded by the court on Monday — mistakenly reported as $323 million by some media outlets — was one of the largest sums the group has ever won in a lawsuit, she said, and marks the first time Syria has been held responsible for damages.
On April 17, 2006, Daniel Wultz, of Weston, Florida, sat down with his parents in Tel Aviv’s “Rosh Ha’ir” shawarma restaurant, near the city’s old central bus station, to enjoy one of his favorite dishes. In the middle of lunch, at around 1:30 p.m., Sami Salim Mohammed Hammed of Jenin detonated five kilos of explosives in a bag packed with nails and metal shards, killing Wultz and 10 others. More than 60 people were wounded in the attack, including Wultz’s Israeli-born father Yekutiel. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the bombing.
Wultz’s mother Sheryl and other family members filed a suit against the Syrian and Iranian governments and intelligence agencies. In the case, filed three years ago in the United States District Court for Washington, DC, the family and Shurat HaDin argued that the Syrians were liable “for their provision of material support and resources” to the Palestinian terrorist group, according to court documents.
While her group has won suits against Iran in the past, this week’s decision marks the first time a court held Syria liable for sponsoring terrorism, Darshan-Leitner said.
“It shows that you can impose law on an lawless regime like Syria. It proves that even non-democratic states can be brought into democratic frameworks in a democratic system,” she told The Times of Israel on Tuesday. Since the judgment was handed down against Syria, it will be enforced “against Syrian assets” — such as US-based real estate, bank accounts and companies in the US that belong to the government in Damascus — Darshan-Leitner said.
“When a state chooses to use terror as a policy tool — as Iran and Syria continue to do — that state forfeits its sovereign immunity and deserves unadorned condemnation,” District Court Judge Royce Lamberth ruled, according to the Associated Press.
Good luck collecting it.
No, justice was NOT done. The Law was done. There's a big difference. Justice will be done when the Assad line is stamped from the Earth forever.
They have about as much chance collecting that as Obama going straight.
Like trying to get street gangs to give up their guns at a buy back event.
Syria's reply, "You and what army?"
Syria has assets in the US.
Like Eric and Barry are going to let that happen?
This will bring the serial killers of Assad and Assad down to their knees.
No one can withstand the fear of a lawsuit, the size of this one.
Sarcasm off!
What a joke! The people fighting assad have proven links to al qaeda and alot of the ones that have been killed have previously fought and trained in afghanistan and iraq.
Its amazing that you are cheering for al qaeda sponsored psychos, as if they are any better.
The fact of the matter is, and ask any israeli, that the assad regime is best thing to have bordering israel, as the alternative would be that israel is surrounded by sunni extremists who have no problems strapping vests and blowing themselves up.
There is a lesser of two evils here, and little assad is definately the lesser.
My hatred for all things Assad pre-dates Al Queda by a couple of decades. His clan was directly responsible for the murder of the Marines at the Beirut Airport.
I want his entire line stamped out.
I want his head on a pole outside Camp LeJeune.
I want his corpse used by Marine recruits for bayonet training.
I want his kids dead.
I want his pets dead.
I want the guy who made his breakfast dead.
I want the guy who made that guys breakfast dead.
Have I made myself clear?
Yes you made yourself clear but it does not mean your facts are correct.
Islamic Jihad actually did the bombings on the barracks as well as the embassy bombing prior to that and a number of other terrorist actions. The head of this organization was Imad mughniyeh, the guy who was killed a few years ago.
They were sort of a front for Hezbollah. Syria actually fought them and hezbollah while helping another shiite group in lebanon. So to say that Syria was friendly is false. IT does not matter whether syria is used as a tunnel for weapons to get to hezbollah currently, we are talking of the past and at the time syria was not an ally of hezbollah, it was not an ally of anyone in lebanon it wanted to absorb the country by fighting everyone andmaking everyone fight each other.
You want to point your finger, then point it at hezbollah and more specifically to iranian revolutionary guards provided by iran who make a large part of the backbone of the organization especially back then.
Im not defending assad here, his father was a criminal and so is he, but he is definately a lesser of two evils in terms of regional stability and safety to israel.
Assad let Syria be used as transit at the very least. That makes him complicit.
My statements stand.
: )
Thanks ilcenter.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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Individuals have similar judgements against the Palestinian Authority. The money is hard to collect, our government isn't on our citizens side in cases like this.
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