US judge rules 9/11 victims cannot seize Afghanistan central bank funds

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON (AA) - Families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks on the US cannot seize $3.5 billion in Afghan central bank reserves, a federal judge in New York has ruled.

US District Judge George Daniels in the Southern District of New York said Tuesday that the funds cannot be granted to satisfy outstanding judgments against the Taliban because doing so would effectively recognize the hard-line group as Afghanistan's legitimate government.

The case dates to 2003 and stems from the Taliban's decision to grant deceased al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his terror group safe harbor in Afghanistan during their initial post-Soviet rule of the country. It was during that time that bin Laden plotted the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in the US.

The Taliban resumed control of the country following the 2021 US withdrawal but many nations have refrained from extending the group diplomatic recognition, including Washington.

President Joe Biden on Feb. 11, 2022 issued an executive order that mandated frozen funds in Afghanistan's central bank, known as Da Afghanistan Bank, subject to US jurisdiction "be used to benefit the Afghan people."

In September, the US Treasury Department said it was moving the $3.5 billion to a Switzerland-based trust now known as the Afghan Fund, which would be outside of the Taliban's ability to access.

Daniels wrote in a 30-page ruling that he is "constitutionally restrained" from recognizing the Taliban's legitimacy, which he would have to do before assigning the funds to the four groups seeking the funds.

The president, he said, "has the exclusive power to grant formal recognition to a foreign sovereign," and the Constitution "forbids this Court from determining what the Judgement creditors require."

"The Judgement Creditors are entitled to collect on their default judgements and be made whole for the worst terrorist attack in our nation's history, but they cannot do so with the funds of the central bank of Afghanistan," ruled Daniels. "The Taliban--not the former Islamic Republic of Afghanistan or the Afghan people--must pay for the Taliban's liability in the 9/11 attacks."