U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn argued last Friday that the families of 9/11 victims cannot sue to claim billions of dollars of Afghan funds frozen by the United States. Of the seven billion in seized funds held at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, President Biden said he’d direct half to aid to Afghanistan and the other half to 9/11 families and others who have won legal judgments against the Taliban.
But Judge Netburn argued that the $3.5 billion could not be used this way, for three reasons. First, Da Afghanistan Bank the central bank of Afghanistan) “is the central bank of a foreign state. This means it is entitled to immunity from jurisdiction and its property is entitled to immunity from execution.”
