From the Intifada to the financing of Iran's arms, Attorney General Gabi Miron claims worldwide on behalf of some 16,000 terrorist victims • "I've always had the motivation"

• "The current lawsuit has very good chances in Israel." The central branch of the Arab Bank in Amman

  Photo:

  AFP

Nothing on the way to meeting with attorney Gabi Miron prepared me for the scope and power of the story that lies behind his activities. In which we talk - an office in a standard office building in Tel Aviv - and the issues that come up in conversation, sweeping and igniting the imagination, he tells me about the many countries his office operates - through branches and collaborations soon to ten countries - to claim justice for the victims of terrorism Those who cooperate with the criminals.

Our meeting comes against the backdrop of a huge lawsuit recently filed by Miron along with his Israeli partner, Adv. Gil Maman, against the Arab Bank, which was published in Israel Today. The lawsuit is based on a similar lawsuit filed in the United States, in which a settlement agreement was reached that included only The prosecutors with American citizenship. The rest, 1,132 Israeli citizens, are now filing NIS 20 billion in Israel.

Learn terror from the root

Miron (68) was born in Chicago to a standard American Jewish family. At a very young age, he developed an affinity for Israel and spent quite a bit of time there, but despite his basic Zionism, his career took him elsewhere, and in the 1980s and 1990s he was mainly engaged in commercial law, taxation companies and the like. In the late 1990s, he and his partner dismantled the package: The partner went to jazz, and Meron found himself at a crossroads just as the second intifada broke out.

"I was always motivated, even when I was young, to find a place or another to fight terrorism," he says. "When the intifada broke out, I told myself that there must be some way a lawyer can contribute. I learned the material, read a lot about Hamas and its affiliates, and as I deepened I realized that this is a global network, not unlike any other business. It's just another business, a terrorism business, but it has all the elements: they have procurement, they have recruiting, they have What they call Dawa - propaganda and marketing, they have funding and also a product, which is to kill people in acts of terror. "

You actually had no real background on Islam, terrorism and the Middle East.

"I had pretty basic knowledge, so on the one hand I started to learn about Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda and others, and global jihad in general, and on the other, I started looking for what laws are in it all. The area, meanwhile, also had the September 11 attack, so the world was already moving in that direction.

"Terrorist Business". Adv. Miron // Photo: Yehoshua Yosef

"I decided to set up a research unit on the subject and came to Israel to look for suitable people. I realized that the main languages ​​we need are Arabic and Persian and I thought a language in the country I can find people who can be trusted in these languages. I knew the late Dr. Reuben Paz, who was the head of research arm. We became very good friends and set up a research unit, not terrorism itself, but the whole infrastructure. At the same time, I began to collaborate with others dealing with such claims - there were few, but they lacked the professional knowledge we had begun to formulate. "

One of the most famous cases that Meron encountered at the outset was the lawsuit against "Holyland Foundation," an American fundraiser by Hamas. "The attorneys dealing with the case had no ability to deal with the material," he says. "For example, they received 20,000 documents taken from the foundation's offices but all in Arabic and need to be translated. So I brought Reuven Paz (former General Security Service) to Chicago and we both sat for a week. We went through the documents for days and found what might be relevant.

"The background to the lawsuit was a 1996 shooting attack in Samaria where David Boim was killed. One of the difficulties was proving that the terrorists were Hamas activists. That was before everything was posted online and the organizations were given responsibility. Then there were handouts in the villages. Of the Dayan Center and we searched a lot until we found a flyer. It was the exclusive evidence that won the case. Without it, the case would fall, which is one of our first wins. " In the end, Boom's parents ended $ 156 million in compensation at the end of the trial, which was never paid after the fund went bankrupt.

"Officials forged transfers"

The idea of ​​suing the Arab bank came to Miron in years when there was much on the Tel Aviv-Chicago line and exposed to frequent reports of terrorist attacks in Israel. "We recognized the interest of the Saudi Committee that raised funds to support the Intifada, and we tried to think of how to act against it," he explains.

Osama Bin Laden // Photo: AFP

There were several, but the main one was the Arab Bank. We were granted access to materials confiscated in a protective wall operation, analyzed them for about seven years and on that basis we filed the claim. Because this is a huge lawsuit, we made some connections with criminal offices in the US and filed the first lawsuit, involving 500 US citizens and 6,000 non-Americans, almost all of them Israeli. "

The lawsuit ended in a compromise a year ago - without the Israeli prosecutors - when the stipulated amount remains confidential under the agreements, but according to media estimates it is about a billion dollars. "That's what was published, and it is inaccurate," smiles Miron, "but I can tell you that the prosecutors Were very, very pleased. "

Maman, who has been responsible for filing the lawsuit in Israel and working on it for the past year, joins us, adding: "As early as April 2018, when the Israeli civil lawsuit was cleared by the US Supreme Court, it was clear to me that we would do everything and continue the fight for all victims of terrorism. I worked for a year and a half in collaboration with the Markman-Tomashin Law Firm to contact clients, update their case and prepare a 700-page lawsuit to file with the District Court in Jerusalem. "Last week, the lawsuit was filed, and Meron and Maman believe She has very good chances of success in Israel, mainly because of the compromise reached in the US case.

As part of his activities, Miron also dealt with legislative changes and lobbying in the US Congress, with a view to expanding the powers of the courts to cases made overseas and past events. "In all my activities, I have always endeavored to have cross-camp support in Congress, and this has proven itself," he says.

"Everything for the casualties." Adv. Maman // Photo: Joshua Yosef

"This year I have been suing nearly 3,000 bereaved families and American soldiers killed or wounded in Iraq by terrorist organizations - al-Qaeda and Shi'ite organizations set up by Iran such as Hezbollah, Badr and more. "And we have the evidence. We have filed another lawsuit against the world's largest European banks on the grounds that they conspired with Iran to illegally transfer hundreds of billions of dollars to Iran, contrary to US sanctions."

How do you prove that?

"The US Treasury sued one of the banks, filed a criminal charge, and all but one of the banks entered into a compromise and paid billions of dollars. Part of the settlement with the US Treasury actually included a blaming and detailing of the bleaching. It is said that Iran sells oil and $ 1 billion into any account, but it is impossible to transfer the money because there are sanctions, right? And where the account is in a bank in London. So what did they do in all the banking transfers of the Swiss Transfer (International Bank Transfer System)? The name of Iran, and put their own name in. Transfer the money as if to themselves, but in practice it is Came to Iranian banks.

"Every bank involved in the money transfer - in Zurich or Frankfurt or London - has set up a special unit and distributed in all branches of the world, except New York, that any transfer to Iran will not enter the automated system and be sent to the group manually. These unit officials take the papers, check them One, changing the register of the money transfer target and manually entering it into the system - they did it not only for Iran, but also for Sudan, Syria and North Korea, but Iran is of course the most significant. The $ 800 billion they realized, at least 60 percent of which came to Iran. "

These are huge sums.

"But that's just the tip of the iceberg. Because the banks, in addition to everything I said, also put bank guarantees on all of Iran's purchases. Not all of that money went to military causes, and on the other hand, many billions went to military forces and terrorist operations."

Next goal: trafficking in women

Another case in which Meron dealt with an attack on the US Embassy in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya and Dar es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania. These are two cases where cargo trucks entered the complex with 224 murdered and more than 5,000 wounded. Here, too, the first step was a study in which Al-Qaeda's connection to terror attacks, and more than that, Al-Qaeda's connection to Iran In 1991, as a result of the Gulf War and US involvement in Saudi Arabia, bin Laden was expelled from the country and he arrived in Sudan.

"Why Sudan? Because just in Sudan there was a revolution and one of the clergy there, Hassan a-Turbi, had an idea to unite the entire Muslim world under an extremist Salafite jihadist ideology," Miron explains. Of course, Iran, Hizbullah, Osama bin Laden, too, came in contact with the Revolutionary Guards, and we have evidence that he flew to Tehran for meetings, and the Iranians also brought aerial photographs and maps. To blow up the US Embassy in Nairobi, as they did twice in Lebanon. Estate in part by the testimony of a former pilot of the private plane of bin Laden described the commute. "

Where does this claim stand?

"The trial took many years, we reached a verdict at the end and then it took another three long years to prove harm. There were 607 clients, and everyone had to go through a committee and bring medical opinions, and so on. In 2017, we got a $ 8.6 billion total client verdict. We are currently appealing for part of the amount of punitive damages and should be held in the Supreme Court over the next few weeks. The federal prosecutor on our side, too, and I believe that will be fine. "

But where's the money? Iran is not just bringing the money.

"So far, Iran has found money in banks, in all kinds of places, and managed to collect $ 3 billion in cash from Tehran. Regarding my lawsuit, some of us can get from the sums paid by the banks that broke the sanctions to the U.S. Treasury, which went to a special victim compensation fund. $ 2.25 billion from the fund, and Otto will receive another $ 1 billion, and an additional sum is expected to come in contact with the Sudanese government, which has recently undergone a swap of government and wants to get out of the list of terrorist-supporting countries, which we have built with senators and members of the State Department. Sudan was in Washington, and because of our work in Beck And there was not a single meeting on the issue of compensation for the victims of terrorism. The Justice Ministry added to Sudan's conditions to get off the list, the compensation payment, so I'm optimistic. "

What next? Where else do you want to operate?

"I filed a lawsuit in France for thousands of Kurds, who are all Muslims, against three French companies that I cannot elaborate on because of the local law provisions there. Our claim is that they helped Saddam Hussein build chemical weapons. We still run this trial. Mine are between 15 and 16,000, of which only 3,000 are Americans.

"My ambition is to go to the Congo, where I want to file a lawsuit on behalf of more than 1,000 UN women victims of UN troops. I really have a desire to get into the whole issue of trafficking in women, slavery. My intention is also one of the largest funds in the world and one of the largest companies in the world that helped ISIS, and here I have more than 1,000 prospects in France, Belgium and Spain.

"Beyond that, I've been to Yazid refugee camps. I've talked to the head of the community, interviewed a hundred families, and there are women who Daesh sold them from one to the other. They made markets like you really only see in movies. There was a stage with women and auctioneers. How much do you pay? How much does it pay?" Then her husband divorces her, gets the money, and she goes to someone else, for a day, for a week, for six months, a year, so women were immediately sold and had children taken at the age of 3. I talked to children who were in care, didn't know their real names, didn't know Where do they, don't speak the language, hate their mother because she is an infidel, because she believes in the religion of Yazidim. This direction ".