Cole families file new, $200 million lawsuit against Sudan

NORFOLK

Sixty-one family members and companions of the 17 sailors killed in the attack on the destroyer Cole have filed a lawsuit against Sudan seeking punitive and emotional damages they were denied in a previous suit.

The $200 million suit, filed late Friday in U.S. District Court here, blames the West African country for providing support to the al-Qaida terrorists who committed the bombing at a port in Yemen.

A federal judge here has already held Sudan responsible for the attack. In 2007, U.S. District Judge Robert G. Doumar awarded $8 million in compensatory damages to 33 immediate survivors. The new lawsuit includes those 33 plus 28 more victims' family members.

With interest, the 33 family members in the original suit split $13.4 million, which Sudan paid last year. Each survivor received between $200,000 and $1.2 million from Sudanese assets frozen by the U.S. government.

Doumar limited the families to actual damages, based on lost income, and refused to award punitive damages, ruling that federal law at the time did not allow for that. In December, Doumar declined a request by the families to reopen the case; that decision remains on appeal with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The new filing is based on amendments Congress made to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which now allows for punitive and emotional damage awards against countries that support terrorist acts.

On the morning of Oct. 12, 2000, the Norfolk-based destroyer Cole was refueling at the Port of Aden.

A sailor standing watch noticed a small boat coming toward the ship fast and hard. The boat carrying two men slowed and pulled alongside the Cole and exploded, ripping a 32-foot hole in the Cole.

Seven sailors perished and 42 others suffered injuries, some serious and life threatening.

"Years after the attack, the parents, wives, husbands, children, and siblings of the brave servicemen and women murdered on Oct. 12, 2000, continue to suffer an unimaginable loss," the suit states. "Many of the plaintiffs experience depression, among other emotional and physical ailments that began in the aftermath of the attack."

The United States has designated Sudan a state sponsor of terrorism since 1993. Osama bin Laden established his al-Qaida base there in the early 1990s with Sudan providing sanctuary for the training of its militants. Sudan became a training hub for terrorists.

One of bin Laden's lieutenants in Sudan, Jamal Al-Fadl, testified previously in a New York case that al-Qaida sent the explosives to the bombers through Sudan with the help of the Sudanese military. And the former foreign minister of Sudan, Mustafa Osman Ismail, acknowledged on American television in 2003 that the country had backed al-Qaida and supported terrorism.

Judge Doumar used this information and other evidence to conclude that Sudan was implicit in the Cole attack.

Sudan never defended itself and the country's embassy officials in Washington have refused public comment.

If the families succeed in their latest suit, it is unclear how they would be paid. Last year, the U.S. State Department reported that Sudan had about $50 million in assets here that remain frozen by the federal government.

Messages left for some family members and their attorneys were not returned on Monday.

Tim McGlone, (757) 446-2343, tim.mcglone@pilotonline.com