New York Times
September 11, 2014
Stephanie Clifford
The witness talked about Arab Bank’s policies to guard against money laundering, and its efforts to identify transactions that might be linked to terrorists. He spoke of how Middle East terrorism hurt the bank’s business, and even how it affected his family.
But after testifying for the defense, the witness, Shukry Bishara, was immediately challenged by a lawyer representing some of the 300 plaintiffs, victims of terrorist attacks. They accuse the bank of knowingly handling transactions for terrorists, in the first civil trial of a bank under the Anti-Terrorism Act. The trial opened last month in United States District Court in Brooklyn.
Much of the testimony by Mr. Bishara covered a group called the Saudi Committee, for which the bank processed transactions. Mr. Bishara headed the bank’s operations in the Palestinian territories during part of the violent second intifada, or uprising, which lasted from 2000 to 2005.
The plaintiffs say the Saudi Committee was offering monetary incentives to suicide bombers. Arab Bank maintains that the Saudi Committee was a charity that was never on the relevant terror blacklists; that the committee made thousands of payments to families affected by the intifada, of which only a handful are in question; and that the bank screened Saudi Committee recipients to make sure they were not listed as terrorists.
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