The Judicial Hijacking of the 9-11 Victim Lawsuits
14 April 2006
While the media plays up the significance of the government show trial of the
seemingly deranged "20th hijacker" Zacharias Moussaoui, not one 9-11 victim's
lawsuit has been allowed to be heard in a trial by jury. Why have the 9-11
victims' families not been given the same right to have their cases heard in an
open trial?
Ellen Mariani, who lost her husband Neil on United Air Lines (UAL) Flight 175,
filed the first 9-11 wrongful death lawsuit against UAL on December 20, 2001.
Interviewed on national television in May 2002 by Bill O'Reilly of FOX News,
O'Reilly repeatedly questioned Mariani about why she had chosen to pursue
litigation instead of accepting the government fund.
"I want justice," Mariani said. "I want accountability. Who is responsible? I
want the truth." Today, Mariani, like the other 9-11 plaintiffs, is under a
legal gag order which prevents her from speaking about her on-going lawsuit.
Likewise, thousands of employees of federal agencies, such as the Federal
Aviation Administration, have received secret gag orders in the mail preventing
them from speaking about what they know about the events of 9-11.
After more than four years, however, Mariani's determined pursuit for the truth
about 9-11 through the court system has failed to yield any answers or discovery
about who is responsible for 9-11. Today, she is no closer to obtaining what she
has clearly and repeatedly said she wanted from the beginning – a jury trial.
Why have the many victims' cases like Mariani's, brought by relatives of loved
ones lost on 9-11, not been heard in open trials with juries -- a basic American
right? And why has the Israeli-owned airline security company involved in the
shocking security lapses, which apparently enabled the attacks of 9-11, been
granted complete immunity by the U.S. Congress?
All of the relatives' wrongful death lawsuits, i.e. criminal cases against the
airlines and their security companies, were consolidated by the presiding judge
into a negligence lawsuit, which, as a civil case, is much less likely to be
argued or investigated in an open trial with a jury. All the 9-11 wrongful
death and personal injury cases against either American Air Lines (AA) or United
Air Lines or any of the foreign-owned airport security companies, namely
Argenbright Security (British), Globe Aviation Services Corp. (Swedish), and
Huntleigh USA Corp. (Israeli) have been handled by United States District Judge
Alvin K. Hellerstein of the Southern District of New York.
In the case of at least one of these security defendants, Huntleigh USA, there
would seem to be a serious conflict of interest for the judge because the
airline security company who is responsible for the shocking security lapses at
both the Boston and Newark airports on 9-11 is a wholly-owned subsidiary of an
Israeli company (ICTS) headed by Israelis with clear ties to Israel's military
intelligence agency, the Mossad. Judge Hellerstein, on the other hand, has deep
and long-standing Zionist connections and close family ties to the state of
Israel. A Zionist is a supporter of the Jewish state of Israel. Judge
Hellerstein's wife, for example, is a former senior vice president and current
treasurer of a New York-based Zionist organization called AMIT. AMIT promotes
Jewish immigration to Israel and stands for Americans for Israel and Torah.
AMIT's motto is "Building Israel -- One Child at a Time."
Judge Hellerstein, 73, is also a long-time member of The Jewish Center of New
York and a former president of the Board of Jewish Education of Greater New
York. This raises the obvious question about why, in the 9-11 terror case in
which an Israeli security company is a key defendant and in which individuals
from Israeli military intelligence are suspected of being involved, was
Hellerstein chosen to preside over all 9-11 victim lawsuits -- and who chose
him?
Huntleigh USA is a wholly owned subsidiary of an Israeli company called
International Consultants on Targeted Security (ICTS) International N.V., a
Netherlands-based aviation and transportation security firm headed by "former
[Israeli] military commanding officers and veterans of government intelligence
and security agencies."
Menachem Atzmon, convicted in Israel in 1996 for campaign finance fraud, and his
business partner Ezra Harel, took over management of security at the Boston and
Newark airports when their company, ICTS, bought Huntleigh USA in 1999. UAL
Flight 175 and AA 11, which allegedly struck the twin towers, both originated in
Boston, while UAL 93, which supposedly crashed in Pennsylvania, departed from
the Newark airport.
ICTS also operates the German port of Rostock on the Baltic Sea. An Israeli
company linked to the Mossad runs the port operations of a major German harbor.
Why would the Israeli intelligence agents want to run a German port?
Some victims' families brought lawsuits against Huntleigh claiming the
Israeli-owned airport security firm had been grossly negligent on 9-11. While
these relatives have a right to discovery and to know what Huntleigh did or did
not do to protect their loved ones on 9-11, Huntleigh was granted complete
congressional protection in 2002 and will not be called to account for its
actions on 9-11 in any U.S. court.
On July 26, 2002, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Homeland Security
Bill and slipped in a last-minute provision which provided complete corporate
immunity for the three foreign-owned security companies. Likewise, the Senate
voted to shield the three security companies from corporate responsibility on
November 19, 2002. These congressional votes effectively prevent any legal
investigation or discovery into the security failures of these foreign companies
on 9-11.
Hellerstein, however, is not the only player overseeing the 9-11 litigation
process who has close ties to Israel. In fact, all of the key players and law
firms involved are either active Zionists or do a great deal of business
representing Israeli companies and/or the state of Israel. Kenneth R. Feinberg,
for example, the special master of the federally-funded Victims' Compensation
Fund, is also a deeply dedicated Zionist. Feinberg single-handedly administered
the $7 billion fund that paid out U.S. taxpayer money to some 97 percent of the
families who could have otherwise used the courts to sue to recover tort damages
for monetary loss and pain and suffering.
The families who accepted the Feinberg administrated federal fund signed away
their right to litigate against the government, the airlines or the security
companies. This federally funded pay-off to the families effectively prevented
nearly all of the relatives from using the courts to obtain justice or truth
through the legal process, which would have brought discovery of facts and
events of 9-11.
The Kenneth Feinberg Group is listed as one of the top ten supporters of the
Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies for 2004-2005. The Jerusalem Institute is
an Israel-based Zionist organization that supports the building of the illegal
separation wall across Palestine, for example. The Feinberg Group also lists as
its clients major insurance and re-insurance companies such as Lloyd's of
London. These are the companies who stood to lose billions of dollars if 9-11
victims' lawsuits had gone forward.
Feinberg was appointed special master by then Attorney General John Ashcroft.
Ashcroft, a dedicated Christian Zionist and supporter of such groups as Stand
for Israel, is today working as a lobbyist for Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI),
Israel's major military aerospace company, which hired the former U.S. Attorney
General to help secure the U.S. government's approval to sell an Israeli weapons
system to the South Korean Air Force.
The Israelis hired Ashcroft to improve their chances against an American-made
system built by Chicago-based Boeing Co. Ashcroft, who was born in Chicago, is
the former head of the Dept. of Justice, where his Israeli-American assistant,
Michael Chertoff, directed the FBI non-investigation of the events of 9-11.
Ashcroft is now being paid by the state of Israel to work against the interests
of an American company - and the United States.
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