Updates to our Terms of Use

We are updating our Terms of Use. Please carefully review the updated Terms before proceeding to our website.

Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Court to Rehear $50M Claim Over Missile Strike

(CN) - The D.C. Circuit agreed to reconsider its dismissal of a $50 million defamation claim against the U.S. government over a 1998 missile attack on a Sudanese pharmaceutical plant.

A three-judge panel declined to rule on the case in March, saying it raised political questions that would require courts to second-guess national security decisions.

The missile strike had been ordered by then-President Bill Clinton, in response to al-Qaida's 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

The target, a pharmaceutical plant in North Khartoum, Sudan, was owned by El-Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries Co. and Salah El Din Mohammed Idris.

The owners said members of the Clinton administration justified the attack by falsely claiming that the plant was a "terrorists' base of operation," was "associated with the bin Laden network" and was secretly a chemical weapons plant.

But the company said it had no connections to al-Qaida and insisted that the plant produced only drugs, including more than half the pharmaceuticals used in the Sudan.

Seeking to recoup their losses from the attack, the owners filed a $50 million claim against the United States, alleging defamation and violations of international law.

Both the district court and the appellate panel dismissed the case under the political question doctrine.

But a majority of D.C. Circuit judges on Monday agreed to rehear the case before the full court. The order also vacated the panel ruling and scheduled oral arguments for Dec. 16.

Categories / Uncategorized

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Loading...