US judge backs 'Palestinian Authority' bid to suppress evidence in suicide bombing
The two families sued the 'Palestinian Authority' in the United States for damages resulting from pain and suffering and for the loss of consortium from their daughters. The two families produced a memo written by the 'Palestinian Authority' with six crucial facts that tied the terror organization to the case. Now, incredibly, a Federal Judge in Washington has ruled that the memo is 'privileged information' and must be returned to the 'Palestinian' terror organization or destroyed.
The document — accidentally handed over to lawyers suing the authority for $300 million on behalf of the teens’ parents — reveals a “close relationship” between the bomber and a captain in the Palestinian Authority security forces who planned the terror attack, court papers say.
The two-page memo, written in April 2012 by Maj. Ziad Abu Hamid of the authority’s General Intelligence Service, also details “at least six other critical facts” about the 2002 bombing and “clearly establishes the defendants’ material support and liability,” the federal court filing says.
But Washington, DC, federal Judge Richard Leon ordered the memo returned or destroyed after the authority’s lawyers claimed it was “privileged and protected” information.
Scott Shatsky, 60, the Brooklyn-born father of one victim, called the decision “incomprehensible.”
“It makes me feel that justice is not being done,” the Brighton Beach native said. “Maybe I’m missing something, but to me it’s just outrageous.”
The plaintiffs’ lawyers have yet to comply with Leon’s Jan. 2 order and last week asked him to stay it pending appeal.
“Defendants’ illegitimate cover-up efforts must not be permitted with impunity,” lawyers David Schoen and Robert Tolchin wrote.
If returned or destroyed, “this critically important evidence of murder will likely be lost forever,” they said.
“It would also deprive Congress of the kind of evidence it must have to evaluate whether to continue funding these defendants, only to see the money go to support and reward terrorism against Americans.”
The memo hasn’t been made public, and a copy was sealed.
But court papers say it links Sadeq Hafez, an operative for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terror group, to Raed Nazal, “who was both a salaried officer in the PA’s security services and a leader of the PFLP cell in Qalqilya,” a Palestinan city in the West Bank.Unbelievable. The terror groups get better protection from the US courts than the terror victims. What could go wrong?
For those who are wondering, yes, I'm still sick and that's why posting has been so light today. I've been out of the house twice to go say Kaddish for my father and I'm about to go out for the third time.
Labels: Palestinian Authority, Palestinian terrorism, suicide bombers, terror victim suits in US, US foreign aid
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:53 PM
6 Comments:
Unbelievable! I think I also saw an article in the last couple of weeks that someone else was blocked from suing the PA for a terrorism incident altogether! So, they used to say that these terrorists would be "brought to justice." But now I guess if it doesn't irritate the Obama/Hillary/Holder Posse's interests enough to get a drone rubout ordered, then there is NO JUSTICE for victims of terrorist attacks.
אין אמונה בגויים אפילו אחרי מ' שנה בקבר
RT HaDaR's post w/ translate.google.com:
There is no faith among the nations even after m years in the grave
Eh?
I would post it publicly and dare the judge to take action.
Maybe I'm oversimplifying, but why not just take a picture/video of the memo and upload it blogs, youtube, facebook, twitter etc. Then the cat's out of the bag
The point is unfortunately not mainly spreading the content of the document, but a judge not wanting to insert it as evidence that can be used in the trial, since she considers it illegally obtained evidence, which in my opinion should be the case ONLY if the party who presented it did something illegal to obtain it. From the story we deduce that it was GIVEN in error by the defense, not TAKEN fraudulently. Which is why we think that the judge was mistaken. Yet, we do not have the whole story nor the motivation of the decision to exclude the evidence..
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