Bloomberg
September 11, 2014
Christie Smythe
Shukry Bishara, the Palestinian finance minister and a former executive at Arab Bank Plc, told jurors at a U.S. trial that the bank made payments in the Palestinian territories to provide humanitarian relief, not compensate families of suicide bombers.
Bishara, the ex-chief banking officer for the Jordanian lender, testified today in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, in a case brought on behalf of about 300 U.S. citizens who were injured or killed in attacks in and near Israel, or were relatives of victims. The plaintiffs claim the bank helped Hamas by providing financial services and want to hold the institution responsible for the attacks.
In 2001, while he was overseeing branches in the West Bank and Gaza, Bishara wrote to bank managers about payments sent at the behest of a Saudi charity to support “the families of the martyrs and the injured” in a period of increased Israeli-Palestinian violence in the early 2000s, according to an English translation of the letter that was shown to jurors.
The payments were “purely humanitarian in nature” to provide “assistance for the Palestinian people,” he said today in court.
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