HELENA – Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen joined a coalition of 31 state attorneys general in asking the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) to overturn a lower court’s ruling that froze Taliban funds owed to the victims and victims’ families of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
In the amicus brief filed Monday in Fiona Havlish, et al v. The Taliban, et al., Attorney General Knudsen asks SCOTUS to reverse a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and allow the frozen Taliban funds owed to the 9/11 victims to be released. The court erroneously ruled that despite victims and estates of victims being previously awarded financial judgments, they do not have access to $ 3.5 billion in Taliban-controlled funds currently frozen in the United States.
In August 2021, Taliban forces captured Afghanistan’s capital city of Kabul. In response, the United States Treasury Department froze Taliban funds currently held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which was eight days before the Taliban installed their own government in Afghanistan. The Court of Appeals ruled that because the money was frozen before the Taliban officially took over the country’s central bank, the victims lose their ability to recover their assets. This is a misreading of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act passed by Congress in 2022.
“The executive decides when to freeze. Congress decided what happens to frozen terrorist assets once a victim holds a judgment. The two decisions were meant to operate in harmony: freeze fast to keep money from terrorists, then let victims collect through standard judicial processes. Alas, the panel decision here impeded that considered approach,” the brief states.
Congress has said that in every case that has resulted in a judgment against a terrorist because of an act of terrorism, any assets in the U.S., including the blocked assets of that terrorist party, can be used to fulfill that judgment. The coalition argues that simple rule applies here, regardless of when the Taliban government took over Afghanistan.
Also joining the Iowa-led brief are the attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.
