Sudan to compensate USS Cole victims
CAIRO: Sudan’s transitional government said on Thursday it has reached a settlement with families of the victims of the 2000 attack on USS Cole in Yemen, in a bid to have the African country taken off the US terrorism list and improve relations with the West.
Sudan’s justice ministry said that the agreement was signed with the victims’ families last Friday but its statement gave no details of the settlement.
There was no immediate comment from Washington.
Sudan’s information minister and interim government spokesman, Faisal Saleh, said over the phone that Justice Minister Nasr-eddin Abdul
Bari had travelled last week to Washington to sign the deal, which included compensations for both those wounded and the families of those killed in the attack.
He said the figures could not be disclosed because the Sudanese government is still in negotiations to reach a similar settlements with families of victims of the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
More than 200 people were killed in the attacks and more than 1,000 were wounded.
Saleh said, however, that the American side is free to disclose the amount if it wishes to do so.
The initial figures on the table had been in the billions, he said, but Sudan’s interim government had “inherited an empty treasury.” He said he hoped the international community would be sympathetic to the country’s situation.
“We expect the United States and the world to understand and to be supportive instead of imposing more obstacles,” he said.
Earlier this week, Sudan’s provisional rulers said they had agreed to hand over longtime autocrat Omar Al Bashir to the International Criminal Court to face trial on charges of war crimes and genocide during the fighting in the western Darfur region.
In the USS Cole attack, two men in a boat detonated explosives alongside the US destroyer as it was refueling in Aden.
The victims’ families, along with the wounded sailors, had sued the Sudanese government in US courts demanding compensations.
In 2012, a federal judge issued a judgment of nearly $315 million against Sudan but last March, the US Supreme Court overturned that ruling on the grounds that Sudan had not been properly notified of the lawsuit.
Andrew C Hall, a lawyer who represents survivors of the attack, said at the time that the victims, though disappointed with the ruling, would continue the case, along with a second related case filed by family members of the 17 sailors who died in the attack.