WASHINGTON (CN) - A Jewish group has the right to sue Russia for the return of religious texts that were stolen by the Bolsheviks and Nazis, the D.C. Circuit ruled.
Judge Williams ruled that Agudas Chasidei Chabad made a non-frivolous claim to ownership of the documents, which Russia decided not to return to Chabad in the early 1990s.
Twice, the Jewish group seemed poised to retake possession of the books in Russia, only to be backed down by mobs of people shouting anti-Semitic slurs.
Russia invoked the act of state doctrine, but failed to prove that the books were seized in territory it controlled - post-war Germany - as opposed to Poland.
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