The Senate passed a bill allowing Americans to sue foreign governments believed to be linked to terrorist attacks on US soil, a measure that President Barack Obama has threatened to veto.
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The Saudi government has warned that if the legislation passes, they would sell off up to $750 billion worth of assets in the United States.
Saudi Arabia threatened to pull an estimated $750 billion in assets from the USA if the bill is signed into law.
JASTA would remove the sovereign immunity, preventing lawsuits against governments, for countries found to be involved in terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.
US District Judge George Daniels in Manhattan, New York, said Saudi Arabia had sovereign immunity from damage claims by families of almost 3,000 people killed in the attacks, and from insurers that covered losses suffered by building owners and businesses.
The White House said Obama still plans to veto JASTA.
The Saudis also warn that playing games with the principle of sovereign immunity will undermine the integrity of global law, turning it into “the law of the jungle”.
John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., gives victims’ families the right to sue in USA court for any role that elements of the Saudi government may have played in the 2001 attacks that killed thousands in NY, the Washington, D.C., area and Pennsylvania. In addition, the Daily Beast reports that a federal judge in Florida is considering the release of 80,000 classified pages that may expose deeper ties between Saudi officials and the perpetrators of the 9/11 terror attacks.
The White House spokesman Josh Earnest said compromises to the bill did not satisfy President Obama’s concerns, which centered on preserving sovereign immunity.
Prominent trial lawyer James Kreindler, who represents 9/11 families – and has won large payouts for the victims of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 – said he expected the Bill to pass in the House and become law.
The bill will have far-reaching impact and already the Saudis are not happy about it.
“Given the concerns, it’s hard to imagine the president signing this legislation”, Earnest said. The legislation will now head to the House of Representatives.
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister warned that the move could cause his government to withdraw United States investments.
When asked if Senate Democrats would support the veto, the senator said he would vote against Obama.
Fifteen of the nineteen men who hijacked four planes and flew them into targets in NY and Washington in 2001 were Saudi citizens, though Riyadh has always denied having any role in the attacks.
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It also amends the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) so that civil suits against foreign sponsors of terrorism can be held accountable in United States courts where their conduct materially supports an attack that kills an American.
