Cash Flow Jihad Intensifies

American citizens are suing Credit Lyonnais for helping Hamas move funds to the West Bank and Gaza making them contributors to attacks on Israel.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A lawsuit by families of suicide bomb victims in Israel seeking damages from French bank Credit Lyonnais claiming it knowingly provided financial services to a group linked to Hamas can proceed, a U.S. federal judge ruled on Thursday.

The suit, which made claims on behalf of 25 families of U.S. victims killed or wounded in the attacks, alleges that Credit Lyonnais, S.A. provided financial services and material support to CBSP, a French charity that raises funds for Hamas.

CBSP has been officially designated a global terrorist organization by the U.S. government.

Credit Lyonnais, a unit of Credit Agricole SA,rejected the claims and filed a motion to have the suit dismissed.

U.S. District Judge Charles Sifton dismissed the most serious of the plaintiff's three claims -- that the French bank "aided and abetted the murder, attempted murder, and serious bodily injury of American nationals."

However, he denied the bank's motion to dismiss claims that it "knowingly provided material support or resources to a "foreign terrorist organization" and "unlawfully and willfully provided or collected funds" for terrorist purposes.

Sifton wrote that the plaintiffs argue convincingly that "it is reasonable to believe that when the bank noticed 'unusual activity' on CBSP's accounts in 2000, in the form of large transfers of money to the West Bank and Gaza strip ... the bank would have investigated the organizations receiving the large transfers."

Judge Sifton is also involved in another similar case.

Sifton's ruling follows a similar one last week in which he allowed a suit brought by victims and families of bombings to seek damages from Royal Bank of Scotland's Natwest to proceed. The suit, which made claims on behalf of 15 families of Americans wounded in the attacks, claimed the unit also knowingly provided services to a British Hamas-linked charity.

Note that these are efforts by civilians on behalf of civilians.

This will definitely put the fear of God in the banking system causing stricter self policing or else cause Hamas to have to pay higher bribes.

My first mate asked why the French Bank was sending money to Hamas. "What are they? Good customers?", she asked.

The siege of Gaza is already causing unrest there.

For more on the American siege of Iran and the Palestinians:

Cash Flow Jihad Bites
Squeezing Hamas' Cash Flow
Iran: Cash Flow Jihad (Sanctions) Update
Iran Cash Flow Squeezed
Lebanon's Cash Flow Problems
Hizballah Joins the Cash Flow Jihad
Cash Flow Jihad Strikes Hamas
Cash Flow Jihad Meets Aftermath
Iran to Enter Cash Flow Jihad Zone
Follow the Money
Follow the Gold

H/T LGF

Update: 06 Oct '06 2000z

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