ZGram - 4/17/2003 - "L.A. judge boots Holocaust claims"

[zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org]

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny:  Now more than ever!

April 17, 2003

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

A bit of a twist in the Holocaust pretzel:

[START]

16 Apr 2003 01:15:41 GMT

L.A. judge boots Holocaust claims against Austria
------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Gina Keating


LOS ANGELES, April 15 (Reuters) - A federal judge in Los Angeles has 
dismissed a lawsuit brought against the Austrian government by 
Holocaust survivors, but their attorney said on Tuesday he will 
appeal the case to try to recover $10 billion in assets that was 
seized and auctioned off during World War Two.

U.S. District Judge Florence Marie Cooper ruled on Monday that the 
proposed class action involving 250 named plaintiffs could not 
proceed because it posed a separation of powers dilemma. The case 
challenged an agreement reached over Holocaust reparations by 
then-President Bill Clinton and the Austrian government in 2000 and 
2001.

Cooper, the first U.S. judge to rule in 1999 that Holocaust victims 
could sue foreign governments, determined that she had jurisdiction 
over the parties to the lawsuit but couldn't preempt the foreign 
policy authority of the executive branch.

The judge instead granted a dismissal motion by attorneys for 
Austria, who argued that the courts cannot intervene in the U.S. 
government's foreign policy decisions, namely, the powers to declare 
war, end war and resolve claims arising from war.

"Courts are reluctant to pass judgment on the decisions of the 
political branches," attorney Konrad Cailteux, who represented the 
Austrian government, told Reuters.

Cailteux also argued that the Holocaust settlement provided for 
special proceedings for victims and their heirs who felt they were 
not properly compensated.

Attorney Herbert Fenster of Denver, Colorado, who represented the 
Holocaust victims and their heirs, said he plans to appeal the ruling 
to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld Cooper's 
1999 Holocaust case ruling.

"The defendants say that you can't litigate these Holocaust cases 
before the courts because the President has resolved  them by 
negotiating with the Austrian government," Fenster said. "We are 
challenging that settlement as being illegal and inadequate. We claim 
the president did not have the right to settle those claims out from 
under us."

Fenster said that under a 1955 treaty reestablishing Austria's 
autonomy after 10 years of Allied occupation, the Federal Republic of 
Austria agreed to make reparations to Holocaust victims, but Austria 
failed to follow through.

The lawsuit also names several insurers as defendants, as well as The 
Dorotheum, an auction house formerly owned by the Austrian government 
that liquidated the property of many of the country's 200,000 Jews.

"They took property stolen from Jews and sold it all over the world," 
Fenster said.

[END]