The Jordan-based multinational Arab Bank was charged in New York Monday with 24 counts of supporting terrorism by transferring funds to Hamas, according to Agence France-Presse.
After deliberating for nearly two full days in a Brooklyn, N.Y. court, the jury ruled in favor of the plaintiffs who claimed the bank transferred more than $70 million to an alleged Saudi terror entity which was allegedly a charity front for Hamas and "11 globally-designated terrorist clients," said AFP.
Plaintiffs also claimed the bank violated the 2001 Anti-Terrorism Act by sending money from a Saudi Arabian fund to Palestinian suicide bombers who died.
According to the concluding arguments delivered Thursday by the plaintiffs, the bank had a "Rolodex full of Hamas customers," and lied in its defense.
The lawsuit was filed by a group of around 300 American relatives and the victims of 24 attacks carried out in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
"For the first time a financial institution is liable for supporting terrorism. The question now is to see how other financial institutions and regulators will deal with their banks and this decision," AFP reported Gary Osen, a lawyer on the team representing the victims, as saying.
But Arab Bank said it will file an appeal, saying in an emailed statement, "Arab Bank believes it will ultimately prevail in this case. The trial was infected by scores of errors, and the Bank has very strong grounds for appeal. It will seek prompt review by the Second Circuit."
The bank's defense maintained that there was no evidence indicating that executives supported terrorism.
"In addition to the deeply flawed sanctions, the court gagged the bank by excluding many of its witnesses, severely restricting the ability of other witnesses to testify, and precluding all evidence of its innocent state of mind."
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