Taliban Asks Washington to Return Afghan Assets worth billions of dollars
After a federal judge in New York ruled that the families of victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks cannot seize frozen assets in the United States, the Taliban authorities on Wednesday called on Washington to return billions of dollars in assets owned by the Afghan central bank, and according to the court’s decision: “They must be returned unconditionally”.
The United States seized Afghan assets worth $7 billion, after the return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, and US President Joe Biden said that half of these funds could be allocated to compensate the families of the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Since then, families of some of the victims who had won a lawsuit against the Taliban years ago, have been seeking to seize these funds to enforce the judgment, but Judge George Daniels in the southern district of New York ruled on Tuesday that federal courts are not authorized to seize these funds.
In a 30-page document, the judge said that “judgment creditors have the right (to collect the amounts due under the ruling), but they cannot do so with the funds of the Afghan Central Bank,” according to Agence France Presse.
“The Taliban, not the former Islamic Republic of Afghanistan or the Afghan people, should pay the price for the Taliban’s responsibility for the 9/11 attacks,” he said.
The federal judge said the constitution also “forbids” him from granting the assets to the families, as that could be seen as recognizing the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.
Since the Taliban seized power, no country has recognized the Taliban government’s legitimacy.
“The bottom line is that neither the Taliban nor any of the judgment creditors have the right to raid the coffers of the state of Afghanistan to pay off the Taliban debt,” he said.
The ruling, which echoes a 2022 recommendation by a judge, is another blow to the families of victims and the insurance companies that paid compensation after the attacks. A defense lawyer for several families said his clients would appeal the ruling.
“This decision deprives more than 10,000 members of the September 11 group (relatives of victims of the attacks) of their rights to seek compensation from the Taliban, a terrorist group that has been found responsible for the September 11 attacks on America,” lawyer Lee Woolwski said in a statement.
The Taliban authorities welcomed the ruling. “These assets are owned by Afghanistan,” Taliban deputy spokesman Bilal Karimi told Agence France Presse. There should be no reason to freeze them or not to return them to the people of Afghanistan,” he said.
More than 2,900 people were killed in the 2001 hijacking of four airliners, two of which struck the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, one at the Pentagon and one at a field in Pennsylvania.
In response to the attacks, US President George W. Bush launched an invasion of Afghanistan that toppled the first Taliban government to govern the country since 1996. The government has been accused of harboring al-Qaeda, which is responsible for the attacks, and its late leader Osama bin Laden. This led to a 20-year war between the US-backed Afghan government and the Taliban.
Afghanistan is currently facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, according to international aid agencies, its 38 million people are suffering from hunger and 3 million children are at risk of malnutrition.
