(Reuters) Victims of the September 11, 2001, attacks and the August 7, 1998, bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa cannot seize $3.5 billion of Afghanistan central bank assets to address the Taliban’s role in the attacks, a divided federal appeals court ruled on [Tuesday].
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) was shielded under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) from having to give up assets blocked at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, because it qualified as an agency or instrumentality of Afghanistan.
Attack victims also failed to show DAB was liable as a Taliban agency or instrumentality under the federal Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, though that law abrogated immunity that DAB had under the FSIA.
