Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has allowed a lawsuit to proceed against one of China’s largest banks for allegedly helping finance the terrorist group Islamic Jihad.

 

The case was brought by the parents of Daniel Wultz, a 16-year-old from South Florida who was killed as the result of a terrorist attack while visiting Israel in 2006. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the April 17 assault on a Tel Aviv restaurant—an attack that was financed through a Bank of China account in the United States, claim Yekutiel (Tuly) and Sheryl Wultz. David died in an Israeli hospital on May 16, 2006.

 

His parents insist that the bank was warned by senior Israeli officials in 2005 that Islamic Jihad was financing attacks through an account maintained by a senior Islamic Jihad officer. But the bank purportedly ignored the warning. The government of Israel also appealed directly to the government of China to force the bank to stop making transfers to Islamic Jihad.

 

The Wultzes are seeking $300 million in damages from Iran and Syria, both of which have aided Islamic Jihad, as well as from the Bank of China, under a U.S. law that allows victims to sue terrorist-sponsoring states in American federal courts.

 

It is possible that the Bank of China will claim that it is wholly owned and operated by the government of China and thus immune from prosecution.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

U.S. Judge Rules Bank of China Can Be Sued in Terrorism Case (by Spencer S. Hsu, Washington Post)

Sheryl Wultz v. Iran (U.S. District Court, District of Columbia) (pdf)

A Promising Young Life Prematurely Committed to Sand (by Steven Erlander, New York Times)