For Israeli attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, the key to breaking the back of terrorism networks is to go after funding used for weapons, support, and different types of operational expenses. Darshan-Leitner is founder and director of the Israel Law Center, which litigates against terrorist organizations and banks that support terrorism.
Those represented by her group use the Anti-Terrorism Act, which allows victims of U.S.-designated terrorist organizations to file suit against financial institutions, even if the case happened outside of U.S. The goal is to seek financial compensation.
Painstaking Work
Speaking by phone from Tel Aviv last week, Darshan-Leitner expressed her firm belief in the painstaking work.
“Terrorism is a scary reality everywhere,” she said, and added that her group currently has about 40 Anti-Terrorism Act cases in process. “People understand that terrorism is something you must fight against, otherwise it will spread and take over.”
Her group of six attorneys files cases in the U.S. with co-counsels based there who share their idealism. The cases are complex and don’t come with a guaranteed win, or compensation. But Darshan-Leitner believes that the nature of terrorism means that it a threat to our very existence.
“It became a global threat, a threat to Western society, and the most clear picture is what’s going on now with ISIS.”
The act saw a major victory last week when a Brooklyn jury ruled that the large Jordan-based Arab Bank should be held liable for a wave of Hamas-sanctioned suicide bombings in the early 2000s. The attacks left several Americans dead or wounded. The civil suit, filed in 2004, marked the first time a bank faced a trial under the law.
Hamas was declared a terrorist group by the U.S. State Department in 1997, and became fair game in court for victims, such as those who survived suicide bombings. Nearly 300 people joined the case as plaintiffs.
In more than a month of testimony, the jury heard Hamas experts and other plaintiff witnesses attempt to link extremists to Arab Bank accounts and detail how cash payments were funneled through the bank and into the hands of the families of suicide bombers. Though it was the first case of its kind back in the early 2000s, it’s certainly not a lone example today.
For Darshan-Leitner, hitting terrorists and terrorists organizations where it hurts, in the pocketbook, is also a powerful recipe for legal intimidation. In the case of Arab Bank, they have at least $26.1 billion in consolidated assets. An attorney for the bank, Shand Stephens, said last week that he was confident that the verdict will be overturned on appeal based on “errors in admission of evidence, errors in jury instructions and errors in imposing sanctions.”
