This archive report was first published on 29 June 2019.
The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear a bid to reinstate $4.3 billion in punitive damages against Sudan for its alleged role in the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, as reported on June 29, 2019.
The bombings, which occurred on August 7, 1998, were carried out by al Qaeda and killed 224 people, including 12 Americans, and injured thousands more. This attack marked the first large-scale al Qaeda attack, followed by the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field, which killed nearly 3,000 people.
In 2000, al Qaeda also bombed the Navy destroyer USS Cole, killing 17 sailors. The court in March prevented American sailors who had accused Sudan of complicity in this bombing from collecting damages.
The plaintiffs, who include hundreds of people hurt and relatives of those killed in the 1998 bombings, sued Sudan in federal court in Washington under the 1976 Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. Sudan has been designated by the United States as a state sponsor of terrorism since 1993.
A federal judge found Sudan liable and ordered it to pay $10.2 billion, including $4.3 billion in punitive damages, to the plaintiffs. However, in 2017, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld Sudan's liability but ruled that a 2008 change in the law allowing for punitive damages could not be applied retroactively.
President Donald Trump's administration urged the Supreme Court to hear the case and reinstate the punitive damages award. The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case during its next term, which begins in October, with a ruling due before June 2020.
