- RIYADH -- A leading Islamic
business group has warned four major Western banks they could be implicated
in a multi-trillion-dollar lawsuit filed by families of victims of the
September 11, 2001 attacks, the group said Sunday.
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- The legal team for Dallah Al-Baraka Holding and its owner
Saleh Kamel has notified the four unnamed Western banks that their names
could be added to the list of defendants implicated in the lawsuit, Dallah
said in a statement.
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- Dallah's banking subsidiary, Al-Baraka Investment and
Development (ABID), and Kamel are among more than 100 Saudi organizations,
charities, businessmen and well-known personalities sued by the families.
-
- "Saleh and Dallah Al-Baraka's legal team expects
that the court will agree to drop their clients' names from the lawsuit,"
the statement said.
-
- "However ... in the unlikely event that Saleh and
Al-Baraka are not dropped from the lawsuit, the Western banks will also
be added to the list of Saudi banks as defendants under the legal procedure
known as 'third party lawsuit' which gives defendants the right to name
other parties," it warned.
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- The statement said that "Based on various reports,
the banks had provided services to the alleged terrorists or their assistants,"
and accordingly can be held liable under the "aggressive legal theory"
put forward by the plaintiffs' lawyers.
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- The lawsuit names members of Saudi Arabia's royal family,
former cabinet ministers, banks and several wealthy businessmen.
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- The group, called Families United to Bankrupt Terrorism,
includes more than 3,000 plaintiffs who are relatives of victims who perished
in New York and Washington at the hands of the suicide hijackers, many
of whom were Saudi nationals.
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- Kamel, also chairman of the Bahrain-based General Council
of Islamic Banks and Financial Institutions (IBFI), has strongly denied
any involvement of Islamic banks in funding terrorism.
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- With investments totaling nine billion dollars in 300
companies in 43 countries, Dallah is one of the Middle East's leading companies.
ABID operates in 30 Islamic countries.
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- http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=7/7/03&Cat=2&Num=022
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