By Jessica Dye
NEW YORK, Nov 6 (Reuters) - A federal judge on Tuesday threw
out a lawsuit brought by a U.S. man wounded in the Middle East
who sought to hold Arab Bank liable for providing material
support to the Palestinian group Hamas.
U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein in Brooklyn, New York,
held that Mati Gill could not prove Arab Bank was responsible
for injuries he sustained in 2008 from gunshots fired from Gaza
into Israel.
At the time of the attack, Gill was serving as an aide to
Israel's then-public security minister, Avi Dichter, according
to the complaint. Gill was wounded by sniper fire while touring
Israel's border with a delegation from the Canada-Israel
Committee, the complaint said.
In court papers, Gill said an individual purporting to
represent Hamas, which has governed in Gaza since 2007, claimed
responsibility for the shooting on a Hamas-run website.
Gill, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen, sued Jordan-based Arab
Bank in 2011, claiming it provided financial support to Hamas
and coordinated payments to family members of group members
killed in action.
He sought monetary damages under the U.S. Anti-Terrorism
Act, which allows victims of attacks by U.S.-designated foreign
terrorist organizations to seek compensation. The U.S. State
Department designated Hamas as such an organization in 1997.
"Moral blame should only follow if the harm caused by
providing bank services to terrorists is foreseeable," Weinstein
wrote, saying he found insufficient proof Arab Bank had
knowledge its actions would lead to a U.S. citizen being harmed.
"Hamas is not the defendant; the bank is," Weinstein wrote.
"And the evidence does not prove that the bank acted with an
improper state of mind or proximately caused plaintiff's
injury."
The case, which had been set to go to trial on Nov. 19, is
one of a handful filed against banks in Brooklyn federal court
by survivors of Hamas-affiliated attacks.
A lawyer for Gill, Gary Osen, said he was disappointed and
intended to appeal.
"This is the first Arab Bank case where the court has
evaluated the entire record, and it dismissed the case
concluding that the bank was not responsible for the plaintiff's
injuries," Bob Chlopak, a spokesman for Arab Bank, said in a
statement.
The case is Gill v. Arab Bank, U.S. District Court for the
Eastern District of New York, No. 11-3706.
For Gill: Gary Osen, Aaron Schlanger and Joshua Glatter.
For Arab Bank: Douglas Mateyaschuk, Kevin Walsh and Steven
Young of DLA Piper.
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