Bribes, waste, and abuse: suggested reading

• The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps will cash in from sanctions relief on Iran… more>>

• The Swiss may have paid the PLO in 1970 to prevent terrorist attacks in Switzerland… more>>

• Question raised whether Sweden is still funding marksmanship training for Muslim refugees… more>>

• Islamist preacher runs 140 tax-funded charter schools in U.S… more>>

Palestinian terror sponsors to post token bond in finance case

Clinton-appointed federal judge George Daniels is allowing two Palestinian entities to pay $10 million for now instead of the $656 million in damages that they owe to the victims of terrorism that they sponsored.  John Kerry’s lawyers at the State Department argued on behalf of the Palestinian entities, claiming that making them a pay a larger bond would impair their ability to govern.  Judge Daniels says he gave “serious consideration” to the arguments made by State’s lawyers.

In the old days, the State Department represented America’s interests to the world.  Now they seem to be acting more like a lobbyist on behalf of terror-sponsoring states (Palestinian Authority, Iran, Cuba…).

From Reuters (h/t Zadok):

U.S. judge says Palestinian Authority must post bond in terrorism case

Source: Reuters – Mon, 24 Aug 2015 16:06 GMT

By Joseph Ax

NEW YORK, Aug 24 (Reuters) – A U.S. judge ordered the Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organization on Monday to post $10 million in cash or bond while they appeal a jury’s finding that they supported militant attacks in Israel.

At a court hearing in Manhattan, U.S. District Judge George Daniels in Manhattan said the defendants must also deposit $1 million each month pending the appeal of a February jury verdict worth $655 million in favor of 10 American families.

The order came after the Obama administration took the unusual step of urging Daniels to “carefully consider” the Palestinian Authority’s financial condition, saying too high a bond could compromise its ability to function.

A collapse of the Palestinian Authority “would undermine several decades of U.S. foreign policy and add a new destabilizing factor to the region,” U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a court filing earlier this month.

Daniels said that in fashioning his order he had given “serious consideration” to the State Department’s position, despite objections from the plaintiffs that the amount was far too low.

A federal jury in February found the PLO and the Palestinian Authority liable for six shootings and bombings in Israel between 2002 and 2004, which have been attributed to Hamas and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

The attacks killed 33 people, including several Americans, and injured more than 450.

The lawsuit, filed in 2004 by U.S. victims and their family members, was brought under a federal statute that automatically tripled the jury’s verdict of $218.5 million to $655.5 million in damages.

A lawyer for the defendants, Mitchell Berger, said the Palestinian Authority was willing to make a $10 million upfront cash deposit and subsequent monthly payments of $1 million but warned that even those funds would severely hamper its efforts to rebuild schools and provide for needy families.

Kent Yalowitz, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the money was a “token amount” and criticized the Palestinian Authority, saying it made payments to terrorists in jail…

 

Islamic terror money: recommended reading

• The U.K. has only frozen the bank accounts of 1 percent of British jihadists fighting for ISIS… more>>

• In response to the $655 million judgment against it, the PLO said “We will appeal.” Then the PLO blamed American victims of terrorism for having traveled to the Middle East in the first place… more>>

• It was excluded from one list of threats to the U.S., but sanctions against Hezbollah remain in effect, 100 percent… more>>

• International financial watchdog:  ISIS‘s “primary source of income comes from the territory it occupies”… more>>

Financial sleight of hand: suggested news reading

• The Palestinian Authority’s stipends to convicted terrorists are beginning to worry countries that give foreign aid.  One P.A. official’s solution?  Have the PLO pay the stipends instead through a bookkeeping trick… more>>

• The president of the Western Australia Islamic Council pleads not guilty in $8 million methamphetamine case… more>>

• Two writers tried setting up shell companies 4,000 times as research for a book. They were only asked for photo identification 20 percent of the time… more>>

• Despite the Dutch company Fokker’s voluntary disclosure of violating sanctions by shipping aircraft parts to Sudan and Iran, their scheme was sufficiently purposeful and egregious to warrant criminal prosecution… more>>