The US Supreme Court on March 26 did not allow American sailors injured in the deadly 2000 al Qaeda bombing of the Navy destroyer USS Cole to collect the $314.7 million in damages from the government of Sudan for its alleged role in the attack.
Namely, the ruling overturned a lower court’s decision that had allowed the sailors to collect the damages from certain banks that held Sudanese assets, Reuters reports.
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The court agreed with Sudan that the lawsuit had not been properly started in violation of US law, as the claims were delivered in 2010 to the African country’s embassy in Washington instead of its minister of foreign affairs in the Sudanese capital Khartoum.
A lawyer for the sailors, said that he was disappointment with the decision. In addition, a lower court had levied damages by default because Sudan did not defend itself against allegations that it supported the Islamist militant group.
The attack that took place on October 12, 2000, killed 17 sailors and injured more than three dozen others when two men in a small boat detonated explosives alongside the Navy guided-missile destroyer. At that time, the ship was refueling in the southern Yemeni port of Aden, and the explosion opened a hole in its hull. The vessel was repaired before being able to return to full duty.
After the attack, fifteen of the injured sailors and three of their spouses sued Sudan in 2010. The issue was whether mailing the lawsuit to Sudan’s embassy violated the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. This is a US law related to when foreign governments may be sued in American courts. Writing on behalf of the court’s majority, conservative Justice Samuel Alito noted that other countries’ foreign ministers must be reached where they normally work.
Before the latest ruling, back in 2012 a federal judge in Washington issued a default judgment of $314.7 million against Sudan. Based on this judgment, individual plaintiffs would receive between $4 million and $30 million each.
What is more, another judge in New York ordered certain banks to turn over assets they had for Sudan to partially satisfy the judgment. The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in New York decided the same in 2015.
