29 September 2006
A federal court in New York has allowed victims of Hamas terrorism to continue their lawsuit against a British bank. Wednesday´s District Court decision allows relatives of 15 victims of the terrorist group running the Palestinian Authority to sue NatWest, a subsidiary of Royal Bank of Scotland, for providing financial services to Interpal. The UK-based charity Interpal, which is also known as the Palestinian Relief and Development Fund, has rejected the link, but was named as a "specially-designated global terrorist" by the US government in 2003. The case was first filed by 15 American families in a federal court in New York in January. The group claimed that NatWest enabled Interpal to raise funds on its website, thus knowingly breaking US anti-terrorism laws which defined the charity as a terrorist organization. NatWest has argued that the British Charity Commission had found Interpal had done nothing wrong. Judge Charles Sifton said the bank's arguments, including that transactions took place long before any attack occurred, were not strong enough to dismiss the case.
