Lining Up for Terror's Frozen Funds Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit source - John Clancy Herald - Oct 15, 2001 Kenyan bombing victims line up for share of frozen funds by Mark Fineman in Washington While the United States Government expands its campaign to find and freeze the assets of Osama bin Laden and his supporters, thousands of terrorism victims are already lining up to share in those financial spoils of war. They are Kenyans - blinded, maimed, orphaned or widowed by the 1998 embassy bombing that the US has tied to bin Laden. Philip Musolino, a Washington lawyer who represents more than 1,000 of them, filed briefs in federal court in Washington last week seeking to clear the way for them to claim to at least some of the terrorists' wealth. A California-based civil rights lawyer, John Burris, also plans to claim a share of the frozen funds. He represents 2,700 more Kenyan victims from the embassy blast that killed 212 people and injured 5,000. The US Treasury estimates it has frozen more than $US350million ($700million) in money tied to bin Laden, Afghanistan's ruling Taliban and their associates over the past two years. Still, the victims face an uphill legal fight to get it. "Our position has been since the beginning that to the extent the Government has located and frozen any assets anywhere in the world of bin Laden or his associates the Kenyan victims deserve a share of that," said Mr Musolino, who filed his class-action suit against bin Laden and the US Government in January 1999. Mr Burris said he might add bin Laden and the Taliban as defendants in the embassy-bombing suit he filed against the US Government in order also to seek a share of the frozen funds. He conceded that, with so many American victims in the latest attacks, "we'll probably have to stand in line. But we can at least stake a claim." Securing any of those funds to compensate victims of terrorist attacks tied to bin Laden may prove an even more daunting task than tracking the assets. The rare template for such attempts is the case of Alisa Flatow, 20, a New Jersey student who was killed by a suicide bomber on the Palestinian-controlled Gaza Strip in April 1995. Her father sued Iran and several senior Iranian officials in federal court, saying that Tehran sponsored the truck bombing. Mr Flatow eventually secured $US26million in damages from funds frozen in Iranian accounts by the US Treasury. - Los Angeles Times ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytaf-10.22.01-18:52:28-14261