After almost a year of dealing with the unimaginable pain and grief, some folks have decided that the time has come to fight back. Relatives of those who died on 9.11 have filed a 15-count, $116 trillion lawsuit against the company run by Osama bin-Laden's family, Saudi Arabian princes, and Sudan (who Gross National Product is about $1.98)
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by more than 600 family members, plus some firefighters and rescue workers.
Calling themselves Families United to Bankrupt Terrorism, the plaintiffs are suing seven international banks; eight Islamic foundations, charities and their subsidiaries; individual terrorist financiers; the Saudi bin Laden Group; three Saudi princes; and the government of Sudan for allegedly bankrolling the terrorist al Qaeda network, Osama bin Laden and the Taliban.
The Saudi bin Laden Group is the construction company operated in Saudi Arabia by Osama bin Laden's brothers. Fifteen of the hijackers were Saudi Arabian, the FBI has said.
Deena Burnett, whose husband, Tom, was killed on hijacked Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania, expressed optimism about the challenge at a news conference.
"It's up to us, and I think we can do it," she said. "It's up to us to bankrupt the terrorists and those who finance them so they will never again have the resources to commit such atrocities against the American people as we experienced on September 11."
Co-lead counsel for the lawsuit is attorney Allen Gerson, one of the attorneys who negotiated a $2.7 billion settlement between the Libyan government and families of 270 people killed when Pam Am Flight 103 was blown up over Scotland in 1988.
Among the allegations in the complaint, said attorney Ron Motley, are that certain members of the Saudi royal family have been active supporters of and helped fund al Qaeda and bin Laden.
The attorneys and investigators were able to obtain, through French intelligence, the translation of a secretly recorded meeting between representatives of bin Laden and three Saudi princes in which they sought to pay him hush money to keep him from attacking their enterprises in Saudi Arabia, Motley said.
Well, all I can say is good luck. The tasks these folks have set themselves to is beyond impossible, but I suppose it beats feeling angry and powerless. Besides, they just might surprise all of us and win. Of course, collecting on a judgement will be a tall order if ever there was one.
116 trillion?? Is it even possible to conceive of a number that large???
