Court case forges unusual alliance

U.S. joins Sudan in fighting suit by victims of 2000 USS Cole bombing

Years of litigation and nearly $315 million in awards are on the line Wednesday when the Supreme Court addresses a seemingly mundane question: whether notices of the lawsuits against Sudan for those injured during the al-Qaida attack on the USS Cole 18 years ago last month, were sent to the wrong address eight years ago.

The notices were addressed to the Sudanese Embassy in Washington at 2210 Massachusetts Ave. NW, where an employee signed for them. One federal appeals court has decreed that was adequate.

But Sudan says that federal law, as well as the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, requires papers to be served on the foreign minister at his official address, which in this case is in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. A different federal appeals court has agreed with that interpretation.

Into this legal and diplomatic quagmire has stepped, ever so gingerly, U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco. He, as well as Saudi Arabia and Libya, filed an amicus brief agreeing with Sudan, one of four nations the State Department lists as sponsoring terrorism.

Washington lawyer Kannon Shanmugam represents those wounded in the attack in the lawsuit being considered by the Supreme Court, and, in a separate suit, the families of those killed. It has been put on hold pending the court’s decision.

“It is mind-boggling that the government has decided in this case to side with a state sponsor of terrorism and against men and women who are seeking to recover for grievous injuries suffered in the service of our country,” Shanmugam wrote in a brief to the court.

“In any event, this court should reject the government’s sloppy analysis and its dubious bottom line.”

The lawsuits arise from the deadly incident on Oct. 12, 2000, when al-Qaida suicide bombers in a fiberglass boat detonated explosives near the naval destroyer USS Cole, which was refueling at a harbor in Yemen.

The blast killed 17 American sailors and wounded 42 others. Years later, the suits were filed against Sudan under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, alleging Sudan had supplied material support to al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden, who lived in the country for a time.

In the case involving the wounded, Republic of Sudan v. Harrison, the plaintiffs filed suit in federal court in the District, and asked the clerk to send the documents to Sudan’s foreign minister at the embassy in Washington.

Someone at the embassy accepted them. But Sudan never responded to the suit, nor did its representatives put on a defense. Sudan’s culpability is not an issue the Supreme Court is considering.