Da Afghanistan Bank on Wednesday welcomed the decision of a US District Court decision not to use $3.5 billion of Afghanistan’s frozen assets to pay compensation to the victims of 9/11.
“Afghanistan’s foreign exchange reserves are assets of Afghans, which are used according to the law for the purpose of monetary stability, strengthening the financial system & facilitating trade with the world,” DAB said in a statement Wednesday.
“The people of Afghanistan want the restrictions imposed on the country’s foreign exchange reserves to be completely removed so that the suffering people can be freed from psycho-economic problems,” DAB said.
“Da Afghanistan Bank – is ready to cooperate comprehensively with the countries of the world & related organizations to resolve international concerns,” read the statement.
This comes after a US judge decided on Tuesday that victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks are not entitled to seize $3.5 billion of assets belonging to Afghanistan’s central bank to satisfy court judgments they obtained against the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA), Reuters reported.
US District Judge George Daniels in Manhattan said he was “constitutionally restrained” from finding that the IEA was Afghanistan’s legitimate government, a precursor for attaching assets belonging to Da Afghanistan Bank, or DAB.
Daniels said letting victims seize those assets would amount to a ruling that the IEA are Afghanistan’s legitimate government.
He said US courts lack power to reach that conclusion, noting that the Biden administration does not recognize the IEA as Afghanistan’s government, read the report.
“The judgment creditors are entitled to collect on their default judgments and be made whole for the worst terrorist attack in our nation’s history, but they cannot do so with the funds of the central bank of Afghanistan,” Daniels wrote.
“The Taliban [Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan] – not the former Islamic Republic of Afghanistan or the Afghan people – must pay for the IEA’s liability in the 9/11 attacks,” he added.
Nearly 3,000 people died on Sept. 11, 2001, when planes were flown into New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon in northern Virginia, and a Pennsylvania field.