by Edna Adato and Israel Hayom Staff
Mourners at the funeral of
the victims of the Mercaz Harav attack. [Archive]
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Photo credit: AP  |
The families of five students who were gunned
down in a 2008 terror attack at the Mercaz Harav yeshiva in Jerusalem
filed a $1 billion civil suit on Tuesday against the Bank of China for
providing financial services to Hamas.
Eight students were killed at the religious
school in March 2008 and 15 others were wounded when Alaa Abu Dhein, an
east Jerusalem Arab, infiltrated the grounds and opened indiscriminate
fire.
The suit, filed at a New York state court,
alleges that Bank of China made dozens of wire transfers for the
Palestinian group totaling several million dollars beginning in 2003.
"The banking giant knowingly helped the
Islamic group carry out this Jerusalem attack with the full approval of
the Chinese government," said attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, director
of Shurat Hadin (Israel Law Center), which represents the families.
The plaintiffs allege that the money transfers
were initiated by Hamas leadership in Iran and Syria, processed through
the U.S. branch of the Bank of China and then sent onward to an account
in China operated by a senior terrorist. From China, the funds reached
Hamas and other terror groups in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The lawsuit also alleges that Israeli counterterrorism
officers met with officials from the Chinese Ministry of Public Security
and China's central bank in 2005 and demanded measures to prevent the
Bank of China from making further wire transfers, to no avail.
Edna Adato and Israel Hayom Staff
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=6193
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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