LAWYER FOR LOCKERBIE, NAZI VICTIMS DIES.
Paved way for lawsuits against terror sponsors
Allan Gerson, a Washington lawyer and legal scholar who helped pioneer the practice of suing foreign governments in U.S. courts for complicity in terrorism, died Dec. 1 at his home in D.C. He was 74.
The cause was complications of Creutzfeldt-jakob disease, said his wife, Joan Nathan.
Gerson was an author, private-practice lawyer, former professor at George Mason University and deputy assistant attorney general under president Ronald Reagan. He was also an accomplished photographer and a jewelry designer.
As a young Justice Department trial lawyer, he pursued Nazi war criminals who had immigrated to the U.S. He rose to become senior counsel to two U.S. ambassadors to the United Nations, Jeane Kirkpatrick and Gen. Vernon Walters.
Throughout, he maintained that the law had a decisive role in public policy and international affairs — a belief that drove his decade-long fight for justice for the victims of Pan Am Flight 103, which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, en route to New York from London, killing 270 people.
Gerson sought to obtain compensation for victims’ families from the government of Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi, which was accused of carrying out the bombing. Resulting legislation paved the way for lawsuits against countries including Syria, Cuba, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Libya, where a legal team negotiated a US$2.7 billion settlement for the Lockerbie bombing.
Allan Gerson was born in Samarkand, then part of Soviet Uzbekistan, on June 19, 1945. The family of Jewish refugees from Poland moved to the U.S. in 1950, settling in New York City. Gerson received a doctorate in juridical science from Yale University in 1976.
He joined the Justice Department the next year and eventually moved to the Office of Special Investigations, where he pursued former Nazi criminals. Many were deported through civil proceedings.
He was later a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the Council on Foreign Relations. In addition to his wife of 45 years, survivors include three children, a brother and two grandchildren.