Ex-Hostages, Victims’ Kin Push for Frozen Assets

Former hostages and the families of victims of alleged state-sponsored terrorism appealed Thursday to Congress for help in collecting multimillion-dollar judgments they have been awarded.

“The Clinton administration has continued to object to every practical proposal we have made,” said Terry Anderson, who won a $341-million federal court award against Iran last month.

Anderson, the former chief Middle East correspondent for Associated Press and now a journalism professor at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, was the latest plaintiff to win a judgment under a 1996 law allowing victims of terrorist acts to sue the offending nations.

Anderson’s lawyers subsequently served Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers with papers seeking to obtain $41 million of the overall judgment--representing only compensatory damages--from a fund containing frozen Iranian assets.

The money would come from an account containing money Iran paid for U.S. arms in the 1970s but never received.

While hundreds of millions of dollars have accumulated in such judgments, not a cent has been collected.

One reason is that the Clinton administration, which at first favored such lawsuits, has blocked successful plaintiffs from efforts to seize frozen foreign assets.

“We got hit over the head with a hammer” by the administration, Stephen Flatow of West Orange, N.J., told a hearing before a House Judiciary subcommittee.

His 20-year-old daughter, Alisa, was killed in a 1995 bombing in Israel while there as a college student. The Flatows have won a $247-million judgment against Iran that they have been unable to collect because of the administration’s opposition.

Even though Anderson was held in Lebanon and Flatow’s daughter was killed in Israel, both have accused Iran of sponsoring the terrorism that led to their ordeals.

“The Iranians are still in the terror business, and our own government has the dubious distinction of keeping them in it,” Flatow testified.

Anderson said that administration officials seemed sympathetic to their efforts to collect judgments--until Secretary of State Madeleine Albright invited Iran to enter a “new relationship” with the United States last month after moderates gained seats in parliamentary elections.

“Phone calls were not returned, meetings were not held,” Anderson said.

Anderson was held for 2,454 days, the longest of the captives in Lebanon. He was abducted at gunpoint in March 1985 and released in December 1991.

At issue is a bill, H.R. 3485, that would limit the administration’s ability to block such judgments and make it easier for plaintiffs to move against frozen assets.

The measure is sponsored by Rep. Bill McCollum (R-Fla.) in the House and by Sens. Connie Mack (R-Fla.) and Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.) in the Senate.

“It is time to send a strong message to terrorists and their state sponsors that they cannot get away with murder,” McCollum said.