Families of victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks cannot seize the Afghan central bank’s frozen assets, a federal judge in New York ruled on Tuesday.
That $3.5 billion, held at a New York branch of the US Federal Reserve (Fed), was frozen on August 15, 2021, the day the Taliban entered Kabul and the fall of Washington – supported the Afghan government.
Families of 9/11 victims who won a lawsuit against the Taliban years earlier have since called for the funds to be confiscated to comply with the verdict.
However, Judge George Daniels of the Southern District of New York ruled Tuesday that federal courts do not have jurisdiction to seize those funds.
“The enforcement creditors have the right (to collect the amounts due as a result of the judgment issued) (…), but they cannot do so with the funds of the Central Bank of Afghanistan,” the judge said in a 30-page document.
“The Taliban, not the former Islamic Republic of Afghanistan or the Afghan people, must pay for the Taliban’s responsibility for the September 11, 2001 attacks.”
According to the federal judge, the constitution also “prevents” him from granting these assets to families because it would be tantamount to recognizing the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. However, since the capture of Kabul in 2021, no state has recognized the Taliban government as legitimate.
This ruling, which follows another judge’s recommendation in 2022, comes as a blow to victims’ families and to the insurance companies that paid out compensation in the wake of the attacks.
More than 2,900 people died in 2001 after four planes were hijacked that crashed into the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.
In 2022, after Washington froze $7 billion in Afghan central bank assets, Joe Biden released a plan to split that sum, half for humanitarian aid in Afghanistan, the other half to compensate families of 9/11 victims .