Civil rights groups hail judge's report that 9/11 families can't claim Afghan central bank's money

A federal judge has said that 9/11 families and other US victims can't receive billions of dollars from the Central Bank of Afghanistan as a judgement against the Taliban, in line with Afghan civil society groups who have argued that the blocked assets belong to the people of Afghanistan to alleviate the country's humanitarian crisis. 

The dispute has been over the US$7.1 billion that Afghanistan's previous government put in the New York Federal Reserve. US President Joe Biden froze the money after the Taliban took power last August.

In February, he signed an executive order that allocated half of the funds for humanitarian relief in Afghanistan, leaving the other half to litigation.   

The recommendation by Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn on Friday, which will be reviewed by a district judge, noted that the billions of dollars being sought by US victims of 9/11 were sovereign funds that belonged to the people of Afghanistan. 

This view appears to be consistent with legal precedent in international and US law, which tends to differentiate the state from its rulers. Because the money belongs to Afghanistan, and not the Taliban, the principle of sovereign immunity applies.  

Moreover, seizure of the assets could elevate the Taliban and recognise them as the country's legitimate leadership, according to Afghan NGOs – including Global Advocates for Afghanistan, Afghan Network for Advocacy and Resources, the Afghan-American Community Organization, and Afghans for a Better Tomorrow – that have been advocating for the funds to be used for humanitarian purposes in Afghanistan. 

"The people of Afghanistan have endured decades of catastrophic suffering at the hands of foreign actors and occupiers," said Sadaf Doost, co-founder of Global Advocates for Afghanistan, according to a press release by the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights.  

"Allowing the $3.5 billion held in the Central Bank of Afghanistan to satisfy judgments against the Taliban would reward the Taliban for their illegitimate ruling of Afghanistan by implicitly recognising the Central Bank as an official Taliban agency or instrumentality – such a decision would not only drive the Afghan people into further suffering, but result in a grave, unconstitutional error," she added.   

On her part, senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, Katherine Gallagher, said, "One year after the Taliban takeover, the people of Afghanistan continue to endure a profound humanitarian and human rights crisis. Judge Netburn's thorough report forestalls the further injustice of allowing the Taliban to evade liability by raiding the peoples' coffer, and provides some hope that the people of Afghanistan will have access to the resources they so desperately need."  

Not all US 9/11 families want the money from Afghanistan's central bank. An organisation called 9/11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows believes that the entire US$7.1 billion belongs to the people of Afghanistan.