IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

 

V.Z. LAWTON, STEPHANIE COOK,
JOE CHICKORASKE, GLORIA J. CHIPMAN,
VIRGINIA FREDMAN, JANE GRAHAM,
TAMARA GREINER, MARLA HORNBERGER,
RHONDA JOHNSON, f/k/a Rhonda Griffin,
COLLEEN LARNEY, DEBORAH NAKANASHI,
LINDA PETERSON, SHERRIL R. STEWART,
and SANDRA TEEL,

Plaintiffs,

v.
THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ,

Defendant.

 

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CASE NO. _____

 
 

COMPLAINT



COME NOW Plaintiffs, V.Z. Lawton, Stephanie Cook, Gloria J. Chipman, Joe Chickoraske, Virginia Fredman, Jane Graham, Tamara Greiner, Marla Hornberger, Rhonda Johnson, f/k/a Rhonda Griffin, Colleen Larney, Deborah Nakanashi, Linda Peterson, Sherril R. Stewart, and Sandra Teel, herein and for their cause of action against Defendant, The Republic of Iraq, allege and state as follows.

I. JURISDICTION AND VENUE



1. Subject matter jurisdiction arises in this Court pursuant to an exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. §§1602-1611, et seq., which exception was created as to Foreign States sponsoring terrorism in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. See 28 U.S.C. §1605(a)(7) and 28 U.S.C. §1605, note.

Although the events complained of herein occurred more than one year prior to the enactment of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Congress expressly directed the retroactive application of 28 U.S.C. §1605(a)(7) in order to further a comprehensive counterterrorism initiative by the legislative branch of government, to wit: “The amendments made by this subtitle shall apply to any cause of action arising before, on or after the date of the enactment of this Act [April 24, 1996].”

The Secretary of State of the United States designated Defendant, Republic of Iraq, as a state sponsor of terrorism pursuant to §6(g) of the Export Administration Act of 1979 on September 13, 1990. See 55 Fed.Reg. 37793-01.

2. Venue is proper in this jurisdiction as a permitted situs for the litigation under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.

3. Service should be effected by registered mail or on the United States Department of State for diplomatic service on Defendant in accordance with 28 U.S.C. §1608(A)(4), as well as (separately) on the Iraqi Interests Section, in care of the Embassy of Algeria, 1801 P. Street, N.W., Washington, D.C.

II. CAUSE OF ACTION



4. The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act enables suits for monetary damages against foreign states that cause “personal injury or death . . . by an act of . . . extrajudicial killing . . .or the provision of material support or resources . . . for such an act.” See 28 U.S.C. §1605(a)(7). The Foreign Sovereignties and Immunity Act, as amended, provides liability for “money damages which may include economic damages, solatium, pain and suffering, and punitive damages if the acts were among those described in §1605(a)(7).” See also 28 U.S.C. §1605, note. The statute of limitations to bring an action under the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act is ten years. See 28 U.S.C. §1605(f).

III. PARTIES



5. The parties hereto are all Oklahoma citizens or former Oklahoma citizens who are either survivors of the Murrah Building bombing of April 19, 1995, or who lost loved ones in that terrorist attack. All Plaintiffs are citizens of the United States.

6. Defendant, The Republic of Iraq, is a foreign sovereign whose activities were outside the scope of immunity as provided by the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. As noted, Defendant has been declared a state sponsoring terrorism since September 1990.

IV. STATEMENT OF THE CASE



7. The parties hereto, based on their collective knowledge and on the knowledge of other victims of the bombing of April 19, 1995, believe that the attack was not as simple as has been portrayed by the United States government during the criminal trials of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. Specifically, upon information and belief, Plaintiffs assert that other individuals were involved in preparation for and execution of the attack. Plaintiffs assert that the entire plot was, in whole or in part, orchestrated, assisted technically and/or financially, and directly aided by agents of The Republic of Iraq. Plaintiffs further assert that this attack was an illegal continuation of the Persian Gulf War. Plaintiffs herein assert that they or their loved ones are, in effect, civilian casualties of said Gulf War in a manner contrary to the Geneva Convention and other applicable international treaties. Plaintiffs assert that the involvement and complicity of Iraq can be proven by both direct and circumstantial evidence in classic application, i.e., means, opportunity and motive, to wit:

(A) Iraq Had the “Means” to Commit Terrorist Acts in the United States.

Prior to the Gulf War, Iraq had developed a covert network in the United States to acquire materials for weapons of mass destruction. After the Gulf War, Iraq converted that network into organized terrorist cells. Those covert Iraqi procurement and terrorist activities directly involved Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Procurement Activities.

8. Sabawi Ibrahim al-Tikriti, a half brother of Saddam Hussein, attended a meeting in London in the fall of 1987 during which a fuel additive company in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma was targeted for acquisition. Sabawi, at that time, played a key role in Iraq’s overseas procurement program. The London meeting also included Dr. Ihsan Barbouti, an Iraqi. Barbouti was later identified in official German government reports and by the United States as being a key procurement agent for both Libya and Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs. The Oklahoma City company that was targeted, TK-7 Fuel Additives, was desired by Iraq because Iraq believed that the fuel additive would extend the range of its scud missiles and because the U.S. company would provide an unwitting front for the acquisition of chemicals and materials useful in chemical weapons development and in the preparation of explosives.

9. Pursuant to the wishes of Iraq, Ihsan Barbouti approached the owner of the Oklahoma City fuel additives company about becoming an investor. The Oklahoma City owner was later asked by Barbouti to secure a shopping list of chemicals for purported shipment overseas. Barbouti’s list specifically included nitromethane and ammonium nitrate – the same two ingredients later mixed to make the Murrah Building truck bomb in April 1995. The list was ultimately entered into evidence, as Plaintiff’s Exhibit No. 5, during a 1991 federal court trial against Barboutis (CIV-89-1264) in Oklahoma City. See Exhibit 1, attached hereto, which is incorporated herein by reference. During that same trial a chemical weapons consultant for the U.S. Army testified that Barbouti’s shopping list included precursors for nerve agents, mustard agents and also “types of compounds for producing various types of explosives.” The expert worried about terrorist applications of the materials that Barbouti sought.

Terrorist Activity.

10. On April 20, 1990, a Criminal Investigation Agent for the U.S. Customs Service authored a “Report of Investigation” including information from a confidential informant from Europe who revealed that Barbouti was a “conduit for. . .funds to terrorist organizations.” The Customs informant also noted that there was an individual working with Barbouti in his technology and weapons procurement efforts for Libya and Iraq. Said individual was identified in a 1991 Florida federal court case, i.e., testimony given two years before the first attack on the World Trade Center, as being “Ramzi Youssef.” Youssef was an Iraqi government agent.

11. In the time period before the Gulf War other witnesses met Ramzi Youssef, who was described as an “explosives expert” employed by the Iraqi National Oil Company, at Dr. Barbouti’s office in London. Indeed, Youssef was part of a team of Barbouti’s agents or employees who were to be “on the ground” in Kuwait, awaiting the Iraqi invasion in August 1990. They were tasked with assisting and cooperating with the Iraqi invasion force, especially in regard to oil field matters. Dr. Barbouti and Youssef had prior knowledge of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. See Exhibit 2, attached hereto, which is incorporated herein by reference. Later, during their occupation of Kuwait in 1990, Iraq created a false identify for Youssef using the identity of a dead Pakistani named Abdel Basit. This was done in order to hide Iraq’s involvement in an impending program of international terrorist attacks.

12. During this same time frame (1989-1990) Barbouti, on behalf of Iraq, also attempted to acquire controlling interest in a cherry flavors plant in Boca Raton, Florida. The cherry flavors plant, as redesigned by Barbouti, would also produce sodium cyanide as a waste by-product of the fruit pit processing. U.S. authorities later discovered that after the Boca Raton plant began operations in September 1989, a number of barrels of sodium cyanide were diverted from the plant. Seven barrels of the sodium cyanide – used to make hydrogen cyanide gas – were trucked from Florida to Houston, where Barbouti had a corporate headquarters for his U.S. operations. The seven barrels were then taken to Baltimore where they were shipped as the “personal effects” of a diplomat at the Iraqi Embassy in Washington, D.C. to the port of Aqaba, Jordan. From there, the cyanide was taken overland to Iraq. Other barrels of the sodium cyanide from the Boca Raton plant simply disappeared.

Three years later Ramzi Youssef attempted to use sodium cyanide to create cyanide gas to release into the ventilation system of the World Trade Center as part of the 1993 New York terrorist bombing. The attempted chemical attack was emphasized by Federal Judge Kevin Duffy at the May 1994 sentencing hearing for four men also convicted of the attack (Ramzi Youssef, the mastermind and bomb maker, was not yet in custody). Judge Duffy noted that the conspiracy’s aim was “to engulf the victims trapped in the North Trade Tower in a cloud of cyanide gas.” The bomb’s explosion luckily incinerated the gas. The source of the sodium cyanide – mixed by Youssef with sulfuric acid to produce hydrogen cyanide – used in the 1993 World Trade Center attack is unknown.

13. In addition to the activities of Ihsan Barbouti and his protégée, Ramzi Youssef, Iraq has promised and prepared for a continued war of terrorism against the United States since the Persian Gulf War in 1990, including:

(a) According to a U.S. Department of State dispatch dated November 5, 1990, Saddam Hussein had called, on September 13, 1990, for a Jihad or Holy War against those nations who supported the U.N. condemnation of Iraq.
(b) According to the same U.S. Department of State dispatch, Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz simultaneously warned that Baghdad was under no moral obligation to refrain from terrorism if threatened by United States, British or French governments.
(c) After the Gulf War cease fire, a promise was made by Saddam Hussein (personally) on November 3, 1992 in Ramadi, Iraq that “the mother of battles . . . has continued, and will continue.”
(d) There was an attempted terrorist plot by Iraqi agents to assassinate former President George H.W. Bush with a car bomb during his planned visit to Kuwait in April 1993, which was foiled by Kuwaiti intelligence. See Exhibit 3, attached hereto, which is an official fact sheet presented by the U.S. State Department to the U.N. Security Council on June 28, 1993, and is incorporated herein by reference.
(e) In June 1996, the UNSCOM 150 Team led by Inspector Scott Ritter discovered a terrorist training school in the southwest quadrant of Baghdad in the Abu Garie area run by Directorate M-21 of the Mukhabarat (Iraqi intelligence). In Ritter’s own words, “Document after document outlined an international program of terror.”
(f) According to UNSCOM reports, as well as Iraqi defector, Khidhir Hamza, Iraq had a chemical weapons testing facility at Samara and a biological agent testing facility at the Salman Pak in Iraq. Both facilities conducted lethal testing on human subjects.
(g) According to reports of the U.N. Special Commission and Iraqi defector Sabah Khodada, Iraq also has an elite international terrorist training camp at the Salman Pak located southwest of Baghdad.

14. In summary, Iraq has had the “means,” before and after the Gulf War, through individual agents like Ihsan Barbouti, Ramzi Youssef and Abdul Rahman Yasin , an indicted fugitive from the World Trade Center bombing currently hiding in Baghdad, to execute terrorist attacks against Americans in the United States and elsewhere. The Iraqi-inspired terrorist attacks that have occurred have often utilized those same materials (ammonium nitrate, nitromethane and cyanide) that Iraq had been attempting to procure since prior to the Gulf War.

(B) “Opportunity” to Commit the Murrah Building Bombing.

15. After masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Iraqi agent Ramzi Youssef was on the run. Youssef eventually returned to the Philippines, where he first visited in the summer of 1991. After setting up a base of operations in Manila during August 1994, Ramzi Youssef, Wali Khan Amin Shah and Abdul Hakim Murad (a foreign pilot licensed in the United States since 1992) began conceiving plans for conducting elaborate terrorist attacks-code named “Project Bojinka.”

In the Philippines as part of Project Bojinka, Ramzi Youssef, on behalf of Iraq, recruited conspirators to attempt to simultaneously bomb five or more U.S. 747 aircraft over the Pacific, using delayed timer tactics with many similarities to Barbouti’s 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103. Youssef also conceived of plans to highjack planes bound for the United States in order to dive them, in suicide attacks, into U.S. targets like CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, a tactic later adopted by Osama bin Laden. Youssef flew frequently from Manila to Cebu City in the Philippines in order to recruit potential terrorists at Southwest College in Cebu City. Plaintiffs assert that at some point in time Ramzi Youssef recruited a willing convert in the person of Terry Nichols who witnesses say went to the Philippines seeking technical help in learning to build a bomb. Meetings between Terry Nichols and Ramzi Youssef were witnessed by a Filipino government informant.

16. Terry Nichols took a number of trips to Cebu City in the Philippines between 1990 when he married a Filipino and 1994. Sometimes Nichols went with his Filipino wife and sometimes he went alone. On November 22, 1994 Nichols made his last trip to the Philippines. However, prior to that trip, for the first and only time, Nichols worried that he might not return. Indeed, Terry Nichols left a letter with his ex-wife for Timothy McVeigh to be delivered to McVeigh in case of Nichols’ death in the Philippines. The letter contained instructions addressing several things including the ammonium nitrate that Nichols had accumulated in a storage locker in Kansas. Said letter was introduced into evidence in McVeigh’s criminal case. After putting his affairs in order, Nichols flew to Cebu City, the second largest city in the Philippines, arriving on November 23, 1994. Nichols’ Filipino wife was already attending classes there at Southwest College.

17. Soon after Terry Nichols arrived in Cebu City, Ramzi Youssef also bought a one-way ticket to Cebu City, on December 9th, for travel aboard a December 11 flight from Manila on Philippine Airlines flight 434. Once on board, on December 11th, Youssef planted a bomb rigged with a Casio timer under his seat. The bomb was set to explode after Youssef disembarked in Cebu City. Two hours after Youssef got off the Boeing 747 in Cebu City his bomb exploded as the plane was on its way to Tokyo. The bomb killed one person and severely injured several others while blowing a hole in the floor of the plane and severing the aileron cables that controlled the plane’s flaps. The 747 successfully made an emergency landing in Okinawa. Intelligence sources in the Philippines believe that Youssef hid out for the next several weeks in a boarding house near Southwest College in Cebu City. Marife Nichols later moved into that same boarding house after Terry Nichols returned to the United States.

18. By January 6, 1995, Youssef was back in his apartment in Manila. At about 10:40 p.m. on the evening of January 6, Youssef and Abdul Hakim Murad were building one of the bombs to be used in the impending attacks on American 747 aircraft, when a small fire broke out in their apartment. The fire caused them to flee the apartment due to poisonous smoke. Firefighters arrived and extinguished the blaze but the bomb making equipment was obvious. Abdul Hakim Murad was arrested that same night when he returned to attempt to retrieve Ramzi Youssef’s laptop computer. The computer contained the Project Bojinka plans to simultaneously blow up five or more American 747 aircraft over the Pacific on the same day. The coordinated bombing was planned for January 21, 1995. Youssef’s computer also revealed that at least five people (identified by code names only) would participate with him in executing the attack. The identities of all of the prospective “Bojinka” bombing participants has never been definitively established but the evidence suggests that Terry Nichols planned to be one of them.

19. However, once Murad was arrested on January 6, 1995 and the bombing plot was discovered, both Ramzi Youssef and Terry Nichols quickly left the Philippines. Youssef flew to Hong Kong on January 7th and Nichols left Cebu City on January 16, 1995, seven days earlier than originally planned, for the United States. During the next several months, from January 31 until March 14, 1995, Nichols made numerous phone calls back to the Philippines, including 13 calls to “untraceable” Philippine numbers after his wife had already returned to the United States. In some of these instances Nichols called the boarding house near Southwest College. In some instances he called pay phones in the Philippines. He sometimes called from outdoor phone booths, in Kansas, during the dead of winter. Most tellingly, Nichols made repeated calls to the Philippines using a prepaid long distance debit card account under a fictitious name, Daryl Bridges, which federal prosecutors say was set up for the Murrah Building bombing conspiracy.

20. Three months later, when the Murrah Building was bombed, Abdul Hakim Murad, in a prison cell in New York City awaiting trial for his part in the plot to bomb five American 747 aircraft, admitted verbally on April 19, 1995 and in writing that Ramzi Youssef’s “liberation army” was responsible for the Murrah Building bombing! Murad’s conspiratorial admission of foreign involvement in the Oklahoma City bombing was revealed by an FBI 302 Report that was referenced in Timothy McVeigh’s March 1997 “Petition for Writ of Mandamus,” Case No. 97-1109 (10th Cir.). The 302 Report was sealed. Said conspiratorial admission, however, was never reported by the government to the bombing victims.

21. Due primarily to Ramzi Youssef’s involvement in planning both attacks, the bombing of the Murrah Building in April 1995 had dramatic similarities to the February 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. In each instance, the bomb was a massive “fertilizer bomb.” The World Trade Center bomb was primarily composed of urea nitrate, although it did utilize a more sophisticated triggering device, i.e., nitroglycerin, and the Oklahoma City bomb was primarily composed of ammonium nitrate. Both bombs were delivered to their targets in rented Ryder trucks which had been rented in adjoining states. Both attacks were timed in order to inflict substantial casualties and to bring down the targeted buildings.

22. Tellingly, according to the sworn testimony of Michael Fortier, McVeigh and Nichols attempted in October 1994 to blow up a metal milk jug with a small ammonium nitrate device. That attempt merely fizzled. Six months later, and only three months after Nichols returned from the Philippines, the same two individuals (supposedly) were able to devastate the Murrah Building with approximately 5,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate and Nitromethane. Plaintiffs assert that this quantum leap in technical expertise occurred during Nichols’ last trip to the Philippines.

23. Freedom of Information Act records obtained from Interpol’s National Central Bureau on February 24, 2000 revealed that, long after Nichols and McVeigh were in custody for the Murrah Building bombing, Interpol was still trying to apprehend at least two other individuals, one a foreign national, somewhere overseas, who were “implicated in the bomb attack against the Oklahoma City federal building on April 19, 1995.” Also, the last (released) document contained in Interpol’s file regarding the Oklahoma City bombing was a New York Times article about the 1997 trial of Ramzi Youssef for the terrorist plots prepared in the Philippines during 1994 and early 1995. See Exhibit 4, attached hereto, which is incorporated herein by reference. Obviously, Interpol connected Ramzi Youssef to the Oklahoma City bombing. Neither of these things was ever revealed by the United States government to Plaintiffs, i.e., bombing victims, herein.

24. Plaintiffs further assert that Timothy McVeigh had additional Iraqi assistance in preparing the Murrah Building attack during the days leading up to April 19, 1995. This included, specifically, the assistance of Hussain Hashem Alhussaini, a former soldier in the Iraqi army during the Gulf War who had been allowed entry into the United States in 1994 through Boston from an interment camp in Saudi Arabia. Also, see Exhibit 5, attached hereto, which is a copy of an April 19, 1995 government memorandum documenting a report to the Washington Metropolitan Field Office of the FBI, made by a former high-ranking CIA official, and is incorporated herein by reference. Said CIA official (who had previously worked on the Pan Am 103 case) was passing on urgent information from a Saudi Arabian counterterrorism official in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The intelligence information was that “there was a ‘squad’ of people currently in the United States, very possibly Iraqis, who have been tasked with carrying out terrorist attacks against the United States.” One of the three targets specifically mentioned in the report was Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The existence of this memo was never communicated by the U.S. government to Plaintiffs herein, i.e., victims.

25. Plaintiffs also note that the U.S. News and World Report reported on October 29, 2001 that “a few top Defense officials think Oklahoma City bomber Tim McVeigh was an Iraqi agent.” The Pentagon asserted that “McVeigh had allegedly collected Iraqi telephone numbers” prior to his arrest. The U.S. government never revealed information about McVeigh’s Iraqi phone numbers to Plaintiffs, i.e., the bombing victims, herein.

26. In March 1998, Timothy McVeigh penned a copyrighted “Essay on Hypocrisy” from federal prison in Florence, Colorado which defended Iraq’s right to “stockpile chemical or biological weapons” because the United States had also done so. In his essay, McVeigh returned again and again to the topic of Iraq:

. . . the people of the nation approve of bombing government employees because they are “guilty by association – they are Iraqi government employees. In regard to the bombing in Oklahoma City, however, such logic is condemned. * * * Do people think that government workers in Iraq are any less human than those in Oklahoma City? Do they think that Iraqis don’t have families who will grieve and mourn the loss of their loved ones?

* * *



I find it ironic to say the least, that one of the aircraft that could be used to drop such a bomb on Iraq is dubbed “The Spirit of Oklahoma.”


See Exhibit 6, attached hereto, which is incorporated herein by reference.

27. In summary, Iraq had the “opportunity” through its agent, Ramzi Youssef, and through other individuals to assist in both the technical planning, and in the execution of the Oklahoma City Murrah Building bombing. Having expended considerable resources in developing covert procurement and terrorist cells in the United States, Iraq did not forego the opportunity to provide training and support to domestic extremists, like Nichols and McVeigh, who were already pre-disposed to terrorism and to “acts of revenge” against the U.S. government.

(C) Iraq Had “Motive” to Attack the United States in April 1995.

28. When it became clear that Iraq was losing the 1991 Gulf War, Iraq repeatedly threatened revenge. Specifically, the Iraqi people will “avenge the pure blood that has been shed no matter how long it takes” as spoken by then First Deputy Prime Minister of Baghdad Domestic Service, Taha Yasin Ramadan on February 15, 1991. In November 1992, Saddam Hussein, himself, announced in Ramadi, Iraq that “the mother of battles . . . has continued and will continue.”

29. A number of events escalated in early 1995 leading up to April 19, 1995, to wit:

(a) The arrest in Pakistan of Ramzi Youssef on February 7, 1995. Iraq probably feared that its complicity in the first World Trade Center attack would soon be revealed, and that future attacks might be compromised.
(b) March 1995 – a U.S. inspired military effort was begun by the Iraqi government in exile (the Iraqi National Congress) in Northern Iraq involving 15,000 troops. Saddam Hussein eventually defeated it.
(c) The United States announced in March 1995 that it would veto any proposal in the United Nations to lift Iraqi sanctions. Iraq was desperate to get sanctions lifted.
(d) On April 10, 1995 the United Nations inspection team UNSCOM filed its official report (written in part by American, Scott Ritter) which revealed that Iraq still maintained a biological warfare program. This report “raised the prospects that sanctions could never be lifted due to U.N. Security Council Regulation 687.” Iraq was enraged.

In summary, Iraq had sufficient “motive,” and Saddam Hussein had previously demonstrated sufficient propensity, to execute a major terrorist attack against the United States in the spring of 1995, and certainly after the events of April 10, 1995.

COUNT I
(28 U.S.C. §1605(a)(7))



30. Plaintiffs reallege paragraphs 1 through 29 as if fully set forth herein.

31. The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act enables suits for monetary damages against foreign states that cause “personal injury or death . . . by an act of . . . extrajudicial killing . . .or the provision of material support or resources . . . for such an act.” See 28 U.S.C. §1605(a)(7).

32. Plaintiffs assert that the entire plot to blow up the Murrah Building on April 19, 1995 was, in whole or in part, orchestrated, assisted technically and/or financially, and directly aided by agents of The Republic of Iraq.

33. As a proximate result, Plaintiffs suffered and continue to suffer substantial damages, including but not limited to physical, psychological, and economic damages suffered by each of the individual Plaintiffs; however, those Plaintiffs who are survivors of the bombing suffered personal injuries including pain and suffering (physical and mental) and, in some instances, economic damages. Those Plaintiffs who lost loved ones in the bombing suffered loss of solatium including mental and emotional trauma. Plaintiffs assert that the valuation of their damages should be consistent with other reported terrorist cases that have been adjudicated since the 1996 Act, including Cicippio v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 18 F.Supp.2d 62 (D.D.C. 1998); Anderson v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 90 F.Supp.2d 107 (D.D.C. 1998); Alejandre v. Republic of Cuba, 996 F.Supp. 1239 (S.D. Fla. 1997); Flatow v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 999 F.Supp. 1 (D.D.C. 1998); Daliberti v. Republic of Iraq, No. 96-1118 (LFO) (D.D.C. May 25, 2001); Higgins v. Islamic Republic of Iran, No. 1:99 CV 00377 (D.D.C. September 21, 2000). See Crowell & Moring LLP report to the Management Director of the September 11, 2001 Victims Compensation Fund, attached hereto as Exhibit 7, which is incorporated herein by reference.
WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs herein who are survivors of the bombing on April 19, 1995 seek actual damages in excess of $5 million each and Plaintiffs herein who lost loved ones in the attack seek actual damages in excess of $10 million each. Furthermore, Plaintiffs collectively seek in excess of $1.4 billion in punitive damages in order to punish and deter Defendant in regard to future actions of this magnitude and nature. Additionally, Plaintiffs seek costs of this action and such other or further relief as the Court may deem equitable and proper.

Respectfully submitted,


Larry Klayman, D.C. Bar No. 334581
JUDICIAL WATCH, INC.
501 School St., S.W., Suite 725
Washington, D.C. 20024

John Michael Johnston, OBA No. 4736
228 Robert S. Kerr Ave., Suite 620
Oklahoma City, OK 73102
Tel: (405) 235-4074
Fax: (405) 235-4084

and

Jay D. Adkisson, OBA No. 13095
16485 Laguna Canyon Road, Suite 260
Irvine, CA 92618-3837
Tel: (949) 756-8450
Fax: (949) 756-8666

ATTORNEYS FOR PLAINTIFFS

 

COMPLAINT



COME NOW Plaintiffs, V.Z. Lawton, Stephanie Cook, Gloria J. Chipman, Joe Chickoraske, Virginia Fredman, Jane Graham, Tamara Greiner, Marla Hornberger, Rhonda Johnson, f/k/a Rhonda Griffin, Colleen Larney, Deborah Nakanashi, Linda Peterson, Sherril R. Stewart, and Sandra Teel, herein and for their cause of action against Defendant, The Republic of Iraq, allege and state as follows.

I. JURISDICTION AND VENUE



1. Subject matter jurisdiction arises in this Court pursuant to an exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. §§1602-1611, et seq., which exception was created as to Foreign States sponsoring terrorism in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. See 28 U.S.C. §1605(a)(7) and 28 U.S.C. §1605, note.

Although the events complained of herein occurred more than one year prior to the enactment of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Congress expressly directed the retroactive application of 28 U.S.C. §1605(a)(7) in order to further a comprehensive counterterrorism initiative by the legislative branch of government, to wit: “The amendments made by this subtitle shall apply to any cause of action arising before, on or after the date of the enactment of this Act [April 24, 1996].”

The Secretary of State of the United States designated Defendant, Republic of Iraq, as a state sponsor of terrorism pursuant to §6(g) of the Export Administration Act of 1979 on September 13, 1990. See 55 Fed.Reg. 37793-01.

2. Venue is proper in this jurisdiction as a permitted situs for the litigation under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.

3. Service should be effected by registered mail or on the United States Department of State for diplomatic service on Defendant in accordance with 28 U.S.C. §1608(A)(4), as well as (separately) on the Iraqi Interests Section, in care of the Embassy of Algeria, 1801 P. Street, N.W., Washington, D.C.

II. CAUSE OF ACTION



4. The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act enables suits for monetary damages against foreign states that cause “personal injury or death . . . by an act of . . . extrajudicial killing . . .or the provision of material support or resources . . . for such an act.” See 28 U.S.C. §1605(a)(7). The Foreign Sovereignties and Immunity Act, as amended, provides liability for “money damages which may include economic damages, solatium, pain and suffering, and punitive damages if the acts were among those described in §1605(a)(7).” See also 28 U.S.C. §1605, note. The statute of limitations to bring an action under the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act is ten years. See 28 U.S.C. §1605(f).

III. PARTIES



5. The parties hereto are all Oklahoma citizens or former Oklahoma citizens who are either survivors of the Murrah Building bombing of April 19, 1995, or who lost loved ones in that terrorist attack. All Plaintiffs are citizens of the United States.

6. Defendant, The Republic of Iraq, is a foreign sovereign whose activities were outside the scope of immunity as provided by the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. As noted, Defendant has been declared a state sponsoring terrorism since September 1990.

IV. STATEMENT OF THE CASE



7. The parties hereto, based on their collective knowledge and on the knowledge of other victims of the bombing of April 19, 1995, believe that the attack was not as simple as has been portrayed by the United States government during the criminal trials of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. Specifically, upon information and belief, Plaintiffs assert that other individuals were involved in preparation for and execution of the attack. Plaintiffs assert that the entire plot was, in whole or in part, orchestrated, assisted technically and/or financially, and directly aided by agents of The Republic of Iraq. Plaintiffs further assert that this attack was an illegal continuation of the Persian Gulf War. Plaintiffs herein assert that they or their loved ones are, in effect, civilian casualties of said Gulf War in a manner contrary to the Geneva Convention and other applicable international treaties. Plaintiffs assert that the involvement and complicity of Iraq can be proven by both direct and circumstantial evidence in classic application, i.e., means, opportunity and motive, to wit:

(A) Iraq Had the “Means” to Commit Terrorist Acts in the United States.

Prior to the Gulf War, Iraq had developed a covert network in the United States to acquire materials for weapons of mass destruction. After the Gulf War, Iraq converted that network into organized terrorist cells. Those covert Iraqi procurement and terrorist activities directly involved Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Procurement Activities.

8. Sabawi Ibrahim al-Tikriti, a half brother of Saddam Hussein, attended a meeting in London in the fall of 1987 during which a fuel additive company in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma was targeted for acquisition. Sabawi, at that time, played a key role in Iraq’s overseas procurement program. The London meeting also included Dr. Ihsan Barbouti, an Iraqi. Barbouti was later identified in official German government reports and by the United States as being a key procurement agent for both Libya and Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs. The Oklahoma City company that was targeted, TK-7 Fuel Additives, was desired by Iraq because Iraq believed that the fuel additive would extend the range of its scud missiles and because the U.S. company would provide an unwitting front for the acquisition of chemicals and materials useful in chemical weapons development and in the preparation of explosives.

9. Pursuant to the wishes of Iraq, Ihsan Barbouti approached the owner of the Oklahoma City fuel additives company about becoming an investor. The Oklahoma City owner was later asked by Barbouti to secure a shopping list of chemicals for purported shipment overseas. Barbouti’s list specifically included nitromethane and ammonium nitrate – the same two ingredients later mixed to make the Murrah Building truck bomb in April 1995. The list was ultimately entered into evidence, as Plaintiff’s Exhibit No. 5, during a 1991 federal court trial against Barboutis (CIV-89-1264) in Oklahoma City. See Exhibit 1, attached hereto, which is incorporated herein by reference. During that same trial a chemical weapons consultant for the U.S. Army testified that Barbouti’s shopping list included precursors for nerve agents, mustard agents and also “types of compounds for producing various types of explosives.” The expert worried about terrorist applications of the materials that Barbouti sought.

Terrorist Activity.

10. On April 20, 1990, a Criminal Investigation Agent for the U.S. Customs Service authored a “Report of Investigation” including information from a confidential informant from Europe who revealed that Barbouti was a “conduit for. . .funds to terrorist organizations.” The Customs informant also noted that there was an individual working with Barbouti in his technology and weapons procurement efforts for Libya and Iraq. Said individual was identified in a 1991 Florida federal court case, i.e., testimony given two years before the first attack on the World Trade Center, as being “Ramzi Youssef.” Youssef was an Iraqi government agent.

11. In the time period before the Gulf War other witnesses met Ramzi Youssef, who was described as an “explosives expert” employed by the Iraqi National Oil Company, at Dr. Barbouti’s office in London. Indeed, Youssef was part of a team of Barbouti’s agents or employees who were to be “on the ground” in Kuwait, awaiting the Iraqi invasion in August 1990. They were tasked with assisting and cooperating with the Iraqi invasion force, especially in regard to oil field matters. Dr. Barbouti and Youssef had prior knowledge of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. See Exhibit 2, attached hereto, which is incorporated herein by reference. Later, during their occupation of Kuwait in 1990, Iraq created a false identify for Youssef using the identity of a dead Pakistani named Abdel Basit. This was done in order to hide Iraq’s involvement in an impending program of international terrorist attacks.

12. During this same time frame (1989-1990) Barbouti, on behalf of Iraq, also attempted to acquire controlling interest in a cherry flavors plant in Boca Raton, Florida. The cherry flavors plant, as redesigned by Barbouti, would also produce sodium cyanide as a waste by-product of the fruit pit processing. U.S. authorities later discovered that after the Boca Raton plant began operations in September 1989, a number of barrels of sodium cyanide were diverted from the plant. Seven barrels of the sodium cyanide – used to make hydrogen cyanide gas – were trucked from Florida to Houston, where Barbouti had a corporate headquarters for his U.S. operations. The seven barrels were then taken to Baltimore where they were shipped as the “personal effects” of a diplomat at the Iraqi Embassy in Washington, D.C. to the port of Aqaba, Jordan. From there, the cyanide was taken overland to Iraq. Other barrels of the sodium cyanide from the Boca Raton plant simply disappeared.

Three years later Ramzi Youssef attempted to use sodium cyanide to create cyanide gas to release into the ventilation system of the World Trade Center as part of the 1993 New York terrorist bombing. The attempted chemical attack was emphasized by Federal Judge Kevin Duffy at the May 1994 sentencing hearing for four men also convicted of the attack (Ramzi Youssef, the mastermind and bomb maker, was not yet in custody). Judge Duffy noted that the conspiracy’s aim was “to engulf the victims trapped in the North Trade Tower in a cloud of cyanide gas.” The bomb’s explosion luckily incinerated the gas. The source of the sodium cyanide – mixed by Youssef with sulfuric acid to produce hydrogen cyanide – used in the 1993 World Trade Center attack is unknown.

13. In addition to the activities of Ihsan Barbouti and his protégée, Ramzi Youssef, Iraq has promised and prepared for a continued war of terrorism against the United States since the Persian Gulf War in 1990, including:

(a) According to a U.S. Department of State dispatch dated November 5, 1990, Saddam Hussein had called, on September 13, 1990, for a Jihad or Holy War against those nations who supported the U.N. condemnation of Iraq.
(b) According to the same U.S. Department of State dispatch, Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz simultaneously warned that Baghdad was under no moral obligation to refrain from terrorism if threatened by United States, British or French governments.
(c) After the Gulf War cease fire, a promise was made by Saddam Hussein (personally) on November 3, 1992 in Ramadi, Iraq that “the mother of battles . . . has continued, and will continue.”
(d) There was an attempted terrorist plot by Iraqi agents to assassinate former President George H.W. Bush with a car bomb during his planned visit to Kuwait in April 1993, which was foiled by Kuwaiti intelligence. See Exhibit 3, attached hereto, which is an official fact sheet presented by the U.S. State Department to the U.N. Security Council on June 28, 1993, and is incorporated herein by reference.
(e) In June 1996, the UNSCOM 150 Team led by Inspector Scott Ritter discovered a terrorist training school in the southwest quadrant of Baghdad in the Abu Garie area run by Directorate M-21 of the Mukhabarat (Iraqi intelligence). In Ritter’s own words, “Document after document outlined an international program of terror.”
(f) According to UNSCOM reports, as well as Iraqi defector, Khidhir Hamza, Iraq had a chemical weapons testing facility at Samara and a biological agent testing facility at the Salman Pak in Iraq. Both facilities conducted lethal testing on human subjects.
(g) According to reports of the U.N. Special Commission and Iraqi defector Sabah Khodada, Iraq also has an elite international terrorist training camp at the Salman Pak located southwest of Baghdad.

14. In summary, Iraq has had the “means,” before and after the Gulf War, through individual agents like Ihsan Barbouti, Ramzi Youssef and Abdul Rahman Yasin , an indicted fugitive from the World Trade Center bombing currently hiding in Baghdad, to execute terrorist attacks against Americans in the United States and elsewhere. The Iraqi-inspired terrorist attacks that have occurred have often utilized those same materials (ammonium nitrate, nitromethane and cyanide) that Iraq had been attempting to procure since prior to the Gulf War.

(B) “Opportunity” to Commit the Murrah Building Bombing.

15. After masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Iraqi agent Ramzi Youssef was on the run. Youssef eventually returned to the Philippines, where he first visited in the summer of 1991. After setting up a base of operations in Manila during August 1994, Ramzi Youssef, Wali Khan Amin Shah and Abdul Hakim Murad (a foreign pilot licensed in the United States since 1992) began conceiving plans for conducting elaborate terrorist attacks-code named “Project Bojinka.”

In the Philippines as part of Project Bojinka, Ramzi Youssef, on behalf of Iraq, recruited conspirators to attempt to simultaneously bomb five or more U.S. 747 aircraft over the Pacific, using delayed timer tactics with many similarities to Barbouti’s 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103. Youssef also conceived of plans to highjack planes bound for the United States in order to dive them, in suicide attacks, into U.S. targets like CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, a tactic later adopted by Osama bin Laden. Youssef flew frequently from Manila to Cebu City in the Philippines in order to recruit potential terrorists at Southwest College in Cebu City. Plaintiffs assert that at some point in time Ramzi Youssef recruited a willing convert in the person of Terry Nichols who witnesses say went to the Philippines seeking technical help in learning to build a bomb. Meetings between Terry Nichols and Ramzi Youssef were witnessed by a Filipino government informant.

16. Terry Nichols took a number of trips to Cebu City in the Philippines between 1990 when he married a Filipino and 1994. Sometimes Nichols went with his Filipino wife and sometimes he went alone. On November 22, 1994 Nichols made his last trip to the Philippines. However, prior to that trip, for the first and only time, Nichols worried that he might not return. Indeed, Terry Nichols left a letter with his ex-wife for Timothy McVeigh to be delivered to McVeigh in case of Nichols’ death in the Philippines. The letter contained instructions addressing several things including the ammonium nitrate that Nichols had accumulated in a storage locker in Kansas. Said letter was introduced into evidence in McVeigh’s criminal case. After putting his affairs in order, Nichols flew to Cebu City, the second largest city in the Philippines, arriving on November 23, 1994. Nichols’ Filipino wife was already attending classes there at Southwest College.

17. Soon after Terry Nichols arrived in Cebu City, Ramzi Youssef also bought a one-way ticket to Cebu City, on December 9th, for travel aboard a December 11 flight from Manila on Philippine Airlines flight 434. Once on board, on December 11th, Youssef planted a bomb rigged with a Casio timer under his seat. The bomb was set to explode after Youssef disembarked in Cebu City. Two hours after Youssef got off the Boeing 747 in Cebu City his bomb exploded as the plane was on its way to Tokyo. The bomb killed one person and severely injured several others while blowing a hole in the floor of the plane and severing the aileron cables that controlled the plane’s flaps. The 747 successfully made an emergency landing in Okinawa. Intelligence sources in the Philippines believe that Youssef hid out for the next several weeks in a boarding house near Southwest College in Cebu City. Marife Nichols later moved into that same boarding house after Terry Nichols returned to the United States.

18. By January 6, 1995, Youssef was back in his apartment in Manila. At about 10:40 p.m. on the evening of January 6, Youssef and Abdul Hakim Murad were building one of the bombs to be used in the impending attacks on American 747 aircraft, when a small fire broke out in their apartment. The fire caused them to flee the apartment due to poisonous smoke. Firefighters arrived and extinguished the blaze but the bomb making equipment was obvious. Abdul Hakim Murad was arrested that same night when he returned to attempt to retrieve Ramzi Youssef’s laptop computer. The computer contained the Project Bojinka plans to simultaneously blow up five or more American 747 aircraft over the Pacific on the same day. The coordinated bombing was planned for January 21, 1995. Youssef’s computer also revealed that at least five people (identified by code names only) would participate with him in executing the attack. The identities of all of the prospective “Bojinka” bombing participants has never been definitively established but the evidence suggests that Terry Nichols planned to be one of them.

19. However, once Murad was arrested on January 6, 1995 and the bombing plot was discovered, both Ramzi Youssef and Terry Nichols quickly left the Philippines. Youssef flew to Hong Kong on January 7th and Nichols left Cebu City on January 16, 1995, seven days earlier than originally planned, for the United States. During the next several months, from January 31 until March 14, 1995, Nichols made numerous phone calls back to the Philippines, including 13 calls to “untraceable” Philippine numbers after his wife had already returned to the United States. In some of these instances Nichols called the boarding house near Southwest College. In some instances he called pay phones in the Philippines. He sometimes called from outdoor phone booths, in Kansas, during the dead of winter. Most tellingly, Nichols made repeated calls to the Philippines using a prepaid long distance debit card account under a fictitious name, Daryl Bridges, which federal prosecutors say was set up for the Murrah Building bombing conspiracy.

20. Three months later, when the Murrah Building was bombed, Abdul Hakim Murad, in a prison cell in New York City awaiting trial for his part in the plot to bomb five American 747 aircraft, admitted verbally on April 19, 1995 and in writing that Ramzi Youssef’s “liberation army” was responsible for the Murrah Building bombing! Murad’s conspiratorial admission of foreign involvement in the Oklahoma City bombing was revealed by an FBI 302 Report that was referenced in Timothy McVeigh’s March 1997 “Petition for Writ of Mandamus,” Case No. 97-1109 (10th Cir.). The 302 Report was sealed. Said conspiratorial admission, however, was never reported by the government to the bombing victims.

21. Due primarily to Ramzi Youssef’s involvement in planning both attacks, the bombing of the Murrah Building in April 1995 had dramatic similarities to the February 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. In each instance, the bomb was a massive “fertilizer bomb.” The World Trade Center bomb was primarily composed of urea nitrate, although it did utilize a more sophisticated triggering device, i.e., nitroglycerin, and the Oklahoma City bomb was primarily composed of ammonium nitrate. Both bombs were delivered to their targets in rented Ryder trucks which had been rented in adjoining states. Both attacks were timed in order to inflict substantial casualties and to bring down the targeted buildings.

22. Tellingly, according to the sworn testimony of Michael Fortier, McVeigh and Nichols attempted in October 1994 to blow up a metal milk jug with a small ammonium nitrate device. That attempt merely fizzled. Six months later, and only three months after Nichols returned from the Philippines, the same two individuals (supposedly) were able to devastate the Murrah Building with approximately 5,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate and Nitromethane. Plaintiffs assert that this quantum leap in technical expertise occurred during Nichols’ last trip to the Philippines.

23. Freedom of Information Act records obtained from Interpol’s National Central Bureau on February 24, 2000 revealed that, long after Nichols and McVeigh were in custody for the Murrah Building bombing, Interpol was still trying to apprehend at least two other individuals, one a foreign national, somewhere overseas, who were “implicated in the bomb attack against the Oklahoma City federal building on April 19, 1995.” Also, the last (released) document contained in Interpol’s file regarding the Oklahoma City bombing was a New York Times article about the 1997 trial of Ramzi Youssef for the terrorist plots prepared in the Philippines during 1994 and early 1995. See Exhibit 4, attached hereto, which is incorporated herein by reference. Obviously, Interpol connected Ramzi Youssef to the Oklahoma City bombing. Neither of these things was ever revealed by the United States government to Plaintiffs, i.e., bombing victims, herein.

24. Plaintiffs further assert that Timothy McVeigh had additional Iraqi assistance in preparing the Murrah Building attack during the days leading up to April 19, 1995. This included, specifically, the assistance of Hussain Hashem Alhussaini, a former soldier in the Iraqi army during the Gulf War who had been allowed entry into the United States in 1994 through Boston from an interment camp in Saudi Arabia. Also, see Exhibit 5, attached hereto, which is a copy of an April 19, 1995 government memorandum documenting a report to the Washington Metropolitan Field Office of the FBI, made by a former high-ranking CIA official, and is incorporated herein by reference. Said CIA official (who had previously worked on the Pan Am 103 case) was passing on urgent information from a Saudi Arabian counterterrorism official in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The intelligence information was that “there was a ‘squad’ of people currently in the United States, very possibly Iraqis, who have been tasked with carrying out terrorist attacks against the United States.” One of the three targets specifically mentioned in the report was Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The existence of this memo was never communicated by the U.S. government to Plaintiffs herein, i.e., victims.

25. Plaintiffs also note that the U.S. News and World Report reported on October 29, 2001 that “a few top Defense officials think Oklahoma City bomber Tim McVeigh was an Iraqi agent.” The Pentagon asserted that “McVeigh had allegedly collected Iraqi telephone numbers” prior to his arrest. The U.S. government never revealed information about McVeigh’s Iraqi phone numbers to Plaintiffs, i.e., the bombing victims, herein.

26. In March 1998, Timothy McVeigh penned a copyrighted “Essay on Hypocrisy” from federal prison in Florence, Colorado which defended Iraq’s right to “stockpile chemical or biological weapons” because the United States had also done so. In his essay, McVeigh returned again and again to the topic of Iraq:

. . . the people of the nation approve of bombing government employees because they are “guilty by association – they are Iraqi government employees. In regard to the bombing in Oklahoma City, however, such logic is condemned. * * * Do people think that government workers in Iraq are any less human than those in Oklahoma City? Do they think that Iraqis don’t have families who will grieve and mourn the loss of their loved ones?

* * *



I find it ironic to say the least, that one of the aircraft that could be used to drop such a bomb on Iraq is dubbed “The Spirit of Oklahoma.”


See Exhibit 6, attached hereto, which is incorporated herein by reference.

27. In summary, Iraq had the “opportunity” through its agent, Ramzi Youssef, and through other individuals to assist in both the technical planning, and in the execution of the Oklahoma City Murrah Building bombing. Having expended considerable resources in developing covert procurement and terrorist cells in the United States, Iraq did not forego the opportunity to provide training and support to domestic extremists, like Nichols and McVeigh, who were already pre-disposed to terrorism and to “acts of revenge” against the U.S. government.

(C) Iraq Had “Motive” to Attack the United States in April 1995.

28. When it became clear that Iraq was losing the 1991 Gulf War, Iraq repeatedly threatened revenge. Specifically, the Iraqi people will “avenge the pure blood that has been shed no matter how long it takes” as spoken by then First Deputy Prime Minister of Baghdad Domestic Service, Taha Yasin Ramadan on February 15, 1991. In November 1992, Saddam Hussein, himself, announced in Ramadi, Iraq that “the mother of battles . . . has continued and will continue.”

29. A number of events escalated in early 1995 leading up to April 19, 1995, to wit:

(a) The arrest in Pakistan of Ramzi Youssef on February 7, 1995. Iraq probably feared that its complicity in the first World Trade Center attack would soon be revealed, and that future attacks might be compromised.
(b) March 1995 – a U.S. inspired military effort was begun by the Iraqi government in exile (the Iraqi National Congress) in Northern Iraq involving 15,000 troops. Saddam Hussein eventually defeated it.
(c) The United States announced in March 1995 that it would veto any proposal in the United Nations to lift Iraqi sanctions. Iraq was desperate to get sanctions lifted.
(d) On April 10, 1995 the United Nations inspection team UNSCOM filed its official report (written in part by American, Scott Ritter) which revealed that Iraq still maintained a biological warfare program. This report “raised the prospects that sanctions could never be lifted due to U.N. Security Council Regulation 687.” Iraq was enraged.

In summary, Iraq had sufficient “motive,” and Saddam Hussein had previously demonstrated sufficient propensity, to execute a major terrorist attack against the United States in the spring of 1995, and certainly after the events of April 10, 1995.

COUNT I
(28 U.S.C. §1605(a)(7))



30. Plaintiffs reallege paragraphs 1 through 29 as if fully set forth herein.

31. The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act enables suits for monetary damages against foreign states that cause “personal injury or death . . . by an act of . . . extrajudicial killing . . .or the provision of material support or resources . . . for such an act.” See 28 U.S.C. §1605(a)(7).

32. Plaintiffs assert that the entire plot to blow up the Murrah Building on April 19, 1995 was, in whole or in part, orchestrated, assisted technically and/or financially, and directly aided by agents of The Republic of Iraq.

33. As a proximate result, Plaintiffs suffered and continue to suffer substantial damages, including but not limited to physical, psychological, and economic damages suffered by each of the individual Plaintiffs; however, those Plaintiffs who are survivors of the bombing suffered personal injuries including pain and suffering (physical and mental) and, in some instances, economic damages. Those Plaintiffs who lost loved ones in the bombing suffered loss of solatium including mental and emotional trauma. Plaintiffs assert that the valuation of their damages should be consistent with other reported terrorist cases that have been adjudicated since the 1996 Act, including Cicippio v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 18 F.Supp.2d 62 (D.D.C. 1998); Anderson v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 90 F.Supp.2d 107 (D.D.C. 1998); Alejandre v. Republic of Cuba, 996 F.Supp. 1239 (S.D. Fla. 1997); Flatow v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 999 F.Supp. 1 (D.D.C. 1998); Daliberti v. Republic of Iraq, No. 96-1118 (LFO) (D.D.C. May 25, 2001); Higgins v. Islamic Republic of Iran, No. 1:99 CV 00377 (D.D.C. September 21, 2000). See Crowell & Moring LLP report to the Management Director of the September 11, 2001 Victims Compensation Fund, attached hereto as Exhibit 7, which is incorporated herein by reference.
WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs herein who are survivors of the bombing on April 19, 1995 seek actual damages in excess of $5 million each and Plaintiffs herein who lost loved ones in the attack seek actual damages in excess of $10 million each. Furthermore, Plaintiffs collectively seek in excess of $1.4 billion in punitive damages in order to punish and deter Defendant in regard to future actions of this magnitude and nature. Additionally, Plaintiffs seek costs of this action and such other or further relief as the Court may deem equitable and proper.

Respectfully submitted,


Larry Klayman, D.C. Bar No. 334581
JUDICIAL WATCH, INC.
501 School St., S.W., Suite 725
Washington, D.C. 20024

John Michael Johnston, OBA No. 4736
228 Robert S. Kerr Ave., Suite 620
Oklahoma City, OK 73102
Tel: (405) 235-4074
Fax: (405) 235-4084

and

Jay D. Adkisson, OBA No. 13095
16485 Laguna Canyon Road, Suite 260
Irvine, CA 92618-3837
Tel: (949) 756-8450
Fax: (949) 756-8666

ATTORNEYS FOR PLAINTIFFS