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Victim's family blocked in bid to collect from Iran
DANIEL KURTZMAN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
WASHINGTON - President Clinton has nullified a provision in the new U.S. budget law aimed at helping the family of an American Jewish victim of terrorism collect damages from Iran.
The provision, inserted by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) in Congress' session-ending spending bill, was intended to force the Treasury and State Departments to help American victims of state-sponsored terrorism collect damages awarded by U.S. courts. It was specifically geared toward the case of Alisa Flatow, a 20-year-old Brandeis University student from West Orange, N.J., who was killed in a 1995 terrorist attack in the Gaza Strip.
Flatow's family has been trying to gain access to Iranian assets in the United States ever since a U.S. judge earlier this year ordered Iran to pay the family $247.5 million for its role in bankrolling the attack. The provision would have helped the family collect the sum by forcing the sale of three Iranian properties in Washington.
But the Clinton administration has opposed the move, calling it a violation of U.S. law and treaty obligations. "If the United States permitted attachment of diplomatic properties, then other countries could retaliate, placing our embassies and citizens overseas at grave risk," the White House said in a statement.
The bill gives the president the authority to waive the provision for national-security reasons - and Clinton exercised that authority Oct. 21. Some lawmakers, however, are challenging Clinton's legal authority to waive the provision.
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