The families of victims of the attacks of September 11, 2001 will not be able to seize the frozen assets of the Afghan Central Bank, decided on Tuesday a federal judge in New York.
These 3.5 billion dollars (3.3 billion euros), kept within a New York entity of the American Central Bank (Fed), were frozen on August 15, 2021, the day of the entry of the Taliban in Kabul and the overthrow of the Washington-backed Afghan government.
Families of 9/11 victims who years earlier had won a lawsuit against the Taliban have since demanded the seizure of those funds to honor the judgment.
Judge George Daniels of the Southern District of New York, however, ruled on Tuesday that federal courts lack jurisdiction to seize those funds.
“The judgment creditors have the right to (collect the sums due under the judgment rendered) (…) but they cannot do so with the funds of the central bank of Afghanistan”, explained the magistrate in a document of 30 pages.
“The Taliban, not the former Islamic Republic of Afghanistan or the Afghan people, must pay for the Taliban’s responsibility for the 9/11 attacks.”
According to the federal judge, the constitution also “prevents” him from granting these assets to the families because that would amount to recognizing the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. However, since the capture of Kabul in 2021, no state has recognized the Taliban government as legitimate.
This judgment, aligned with the recommendation issued in 2022 by another magistrate, is a blow to the families of victims and to the insurance companies which paid compensation following the attacks.
More than 2,900 people died in 2001 after four jetliners were hijacked, crashing into the Twin Towers of New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania.
After the freezing of 7 billion dollars of assets of the Afghan central bank by Washington, Joe Biden had made public in 2022 a plan to share this sum, half to be devoted to humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, l the other to compensation for the families of victims of 9/11.