Judge: Iran Has Some Blame in '96 Attack [killing 19 Americans]

Yahoo ^ | 12/22/2006 | MATT APUZZO

[Hadean]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Iranian government is partly to blame for a 1996 terrorist attack that killed 19 Americans in Saudi Arabia, a federal judge ruled Friday.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth allows the families of the victims of the Khobar Towers bombing to seek $254 million in compensation from the conservative Islamic regime in Tehran.

Though intelligence officials have suspected a link between the Tehran government and the Saudi wing of Hezbollah, which the FBI has accused of carrying out the bombing, Friday's ruling is the first time a branch of the U.S. government has officially blamed Iran for the deaths of Americans in the bombings.

"This court takes note of plaintiffs' courage and steadfastness in pursuing this litigation and their efforts to take action to deter more tragic suffering of innocent Americans at the hands of terrorists," Lamberth wrote. "Their efforts are to be commended."

Lamberth relied heavily on testimony by former FBI Director Louis Freeh, who investigated the bombings.

Two Iranian government security agencies and senior members of the Iranian government itself provided funding, training and logistical help to terrorists who carried out the attack on a dormitory that housed U.S. Air Force pilots and staff in Saudi Arabia, Freeh testified.

[Biscuit85]

And Clintoon did nothing about it

[popdonnelly]

Hizzoner was appointed by Ronald Reagan.

[kristinn]

Thanks for posting this. The decision can be found in PDF form here.

Scroll down until you find this:

Estate of Michael Heiser, et al. v. Islamic Republic of Iran, et al.
Civil Action No. 2000-2329
Memorandum Opinion issued December 1, 2006 by Judge Royce C. Lamberth
Order issued December 1, 2006 by Judge Royce C. Lamberth

The memorandum opinion is 209 pages. The order is six pages.

[Wraith]

Its never to late to look the devil in the eye....

[cgk]

PING

[cgk]

LOUIS J. FREEH: REMEMBER KHOBAR TOWERS - Nineteen American heroes still await American justice

MUST READ Excerpt: "The only direction from the Clinton administration regarding Iran was to order the FBI to stop photographing and fingerprinting official Iranian delegations entering the U.S. because it was adversely impacting our "relationship" with Tehran. We had argued that the MOIS was using these groups to infiltrate its agents into the U.S.

After months of inaction, I finally turned to the former President Bush, who immediately interceded with Crown Prince Abdullah on the FBI's behalf. Mr. Bush personally asked the Saudis to let the FBI do one-on-one interviews of the detained Khobar bombers. The Saudis immediately acceded. After Mr. Bush's Saturday meeting with the Crown Prince in Washington, Ambassador Wyche Fowler, Dale Watson, the FBI's excellent counterterrorism chief, and I were summoned to a Monday meeting where the crown prince directed that the FBI be given direct access to the Saudi detainees. This was the investigative breakthrough for which we had been waiting for several years.

Mr. Bush typically disclaimed any credit for his critical intervention but he earned the gratitude of many FBI agents and the Khobar families. I quickly dispatched the FBI case agents back to Saudi Arabia, where they interviewed, one-on-one, six of the Hezbollah members who actually carried out the attack. All of them directly implicated the IRGC, MOIS and senior Iranian government officials in the planning and execution of this attack. Armed with this evidence, the FBI recommended a criminal indictment that would identify Iran as the sponsor of the Khobar bombing. Finding a problem for every solution, the Clinton administration refused to support a prosecution.

The prosecution and criminal indictment for these murders had to wait for a new administration. In February 2001, working with exactly the same evidence but with a talented new prosecutor, James B. Comey Jr. (now U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York), Attorney General John Ashcroft's personal intervention, and White House support, the case was presented to a grand jury. On June 21, 2001, only four days before some of the terrorist charges would have become barred by the five-year statute of limitations, the grand jury indicted 13 Hezbollah terrorists for the Khobar attack and identified Iran as the sponsor. (end excerpt)

---

These are the nineteen U.S. Air Force servicemen killed in the blast.

• Captain Christopher Adams
• Technical Sergeant Daniel B. Cafourek
• Sergeant Millard D. Campbell
• Senior Airman Earl R. Cartrette Jr
• Captain Leland Haun
• Technical Sergeant Patrick P. Fennig
• Master Sergeant Michael G. Heiser
• Staff Sergeant Kevin Johnson
• Sergeant Ronald King
• Master Sergeant Kendall K. Kitson
• Airman 1st Class Christopher Lester
• Airman 1st Class Brent E. Marthaler
• Airman 1st Class Brian W. McVeigh
• Airman 1st Class Peter J. Morgera
• Technical Sergeant Thanh V. Nguyen
• Airman 1st Class Joseph E. Rimkus
• Airman 1st Class Justin Wood
• Airman 1st Class Joshua E. Woody

  ---

[cgk]

Sergeant Guerrero (who tried to evacuate the entire bldg and saved many people from dying that day) said people have to open their eyes and be more aware of their surroundings. They no longer have a choice. "We simply can't walk around with blinders on," he said. "You're a target. Be cautious in what you do. Be observant. Know your threats. Train for the inevitable."

[El Gato]

What is the FBI doing investigation attacks on our military forces? Except as invited experts providing technical assistance. they have no business doing so. The DoD has it's own investigators, and lots of resources the FBI doesn't. Attacks on our forces are no business of the "Justice Department" of which the FBI is a part. They are strictly military and foreign affairs matters, and thus the business of DoD and State, not Justice.

Such matters are not for the Courts, but for the Military, to bring to closure.

[aculeus]

BTTT

[cgk]

Removed from Breaking News but the Duke (non-) Rape case (circus) remains.

Where am I?

[theBuckwheat]

Now, any politician who insists that Bush much negotiate with Iran, as suggested in the Iraq Surrender Group report, will have to face the important legal determination that Iran the blood of US soldiers and citizens on its hands, in what is considered one of the opening bombings of the present Islamic War against the US.

[theBuckwheat]

>>
What is the FBI doing investigation attacks on our military forces? Except as invited experts providing technical assistance. they have no business doing so.
<<

Part off the Clinton effort to deny there was anyone committing Acts of War against us. It is the flip side of treating the 1993 WTC bombing as a criminal act (along with the OKC Bombing, and TWA 800 missile attack)

[jwalsh07]

That won't dissuade Baker and Hamilton. So they murdered Americans? BFD.

[eastforker]

(along with the OKC Bombing, and TWA 800 missile attack)...................just wait till _jim reads this post!

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Such matters are not for the Courts, but for the Military, to bring to closure.

This was during the Clintoon Era....

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

AP has strengthened...the Headline....:

Judge: Iran Owes $254M in Terror Attack

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Good question....perplexing...

[_Jim]

So, we have a 'suspects' in reverse chronology over the last decade according to a NUMBER of people certain of you people put 'stock' in (people like micahel redvero for instance): Iranians, Iraqis, White Supremacists and 'THE GOVERNMENT' itself (Jeff Head wrote back then that it was a "An American Reichstag event".)

Oklahoma City was an American Reichstag Event

Relevance: Eight days before the election the the Reichstag (the German parliament building) was set afire ; it enable Hitler to gain more control of power in Germany ...

Conspiracy du jour ... who are you going to believe?