American Jewish organizations that fought to establish the jurisdiction of U.S. courts for suits against terrorist groups are taking an opposite tack in suits involving human rights abuses.
Jewish groups have filed briefs siding with a former Somali official now living in Virginia who is alleged to bear responsibility for atrocities committed during his tenure.
The case’s outcome is expected to set a precedent on the vulnerability to human rights lawsuits of former and present officials of internationally recognized governments. But supporters of Israel fear the result could enable Palestinians who claim to be victims of Israel to pursue Israeli officials here.
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments March 3 in the case of Yousuf v. Samantar, in which a group of Somalis is seeking financial damages from Mohamed Ali Samantar, Somalia’s former defense minister........ Among the five Somalis suing Samantar are a student who was allegedly detained and raped 15 times by a military man, a former officer who alleges he survived a mass execution and a businessman who claims he was tortured for months by the regime Samantar helped lead. Two of the plaintiffs are now American citizens. The case was filed under the Torture Victim Protection Act.
The Supreme Court will rule on the plaintiffs’ right to pursue a civil lawsuit against Samantar. Pro-Israel activists, fearing a precedent that will allow others to pursue legal action against Israel for alleged war crimes — as has happened in Europe — have filed briefs opposing their suit.
“There will be a rash of lawsuits of this kind against Israel” if the court rules for the plaintiffs, warned Alyza Lewin, an attorney with the firm of Lewin & Lewin, which has filed a friend-of-the-court brief in favor of Samantar and against making foreign officials vulnerable to civil lawsuits. The brief was filed on behalf of four Jewish groups: the Zionist Organization of America, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, Agudath Israel of America, and the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists.
A couple of Israeli officials already faced this threat in the United States.
..........In 2005, former chief of staff and current Cabinet minister Moshe Ya’alon was served with a civil suit while entering a Washington think tank he was attending as a visiting scholar, filed by families of victims from a 1996 Israeli shelling in Lebanon. A week earlier, Avi Dichter, former head of Israel’s General Security Service, had the same experience in New York. This lawsuit was on behalf of victims of an Israeli bombing in Gaza.
These lawsuits cannot lead to arrests, but they can cause significant financial liabilities to Israelis and eventually deter Israeli officials from visiting America, pro-Israel activists say.
Fighting to maintain immunity for foreign officials seems to place Jewish activists far from positions they have taken in the past.........
On the other side are human- rights groups, led by the Center for Justice & Accountability, representing the Somali citizens suing Samantar. “This case stands for the proposition that the U.S. cannot be a safe haven for human-rights abusers like Samantar,” said Pamela Merchant, the group’s executive director, “and we are confident that the Supreme Court will not allow U.S. law to be manipulated to undermine this principle.” Full story
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