eBooks - Politics & Government - Government - Allan Gerson - The Price of Terror
The Price of Terror eBook
by Allan Gerson
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The Price of Terror Summary
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Allan Gerson, the attorney representing the families of 600 people killed on 9/11 in a suit against Saudi Arabian interests and the Sudan, here recounts the landmark case, and his role in it, that made it possible for civilians to sue international and state sponsors of terrorism: The $2.7 billion judgment against Libya for its role in the 1988 terrorist attack that killed 259 people aboard Pan Am 103 and eleven on the ground in Lockerbie, Scotland. On August 15, 2002, families of 600 people killed in the September 11 attacks filed suit in Washington, DC's U.S. District Court against Saudi Arabian banks, charities, members of the Saudi "royal family," and the government of Sudan, seeking hundreds of billions of dollars in damages for alleged Saudi and Sudanese sponsorship of al Qaeda. "Saudi Arabia and others have been involved in a protection racket for many years," said lead attorney Allan Gerson. "The function of the lawsuit is to expose this and to seek damages, not only for its own sake but to serve as a deterrent." Having won from Libya an agreement to pay $2.7 billion for its role in the December 21, 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, Allan Gerson knows what is involved in seeking justice on behalf of the victims of a terrorist attack. America did not strike back after the terrorist killings of 259 people in the air over Lockerbie and eleven on the ground. Instead, it was left to the grieving relatives of the victims to do the unthinkable, as mere civilians: to try to force Libya to pay for its crime. Lawyers told the families that they could never sue Libya in American courts, and they were right. Such a suit would require changing a bedrock principle of international law -- a change that every government in the world feared and fought, including the United States itself. Working virtually alone at first, Allan Gerson, a former diplomat and prosecutor of Nazi war criminals, took on the Lockerbie case and spent the next eight years on the families' quest for justice. In this high-stakes game of international power politics and legal maneuvering, there were friendships, jobs, and reputations lost, but a precious principle -- that of accountability under the law -- was strengthened and preserved. In The Price of Terror, Gerson and his co-author, Newsweek's Jerry Adler, follow the threads of this extraordinary tale back to that deadly night over Lockerbie, Scotland -- and forward into a new era of international justice, when terrorists will learn to fear the righteous retribution of their own victims. |
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eBooks - Titles - Authors - Politics & Government - Government - Allan Gerson - The Price of Terror