USS Cole victims opposed by US and Sudan in case

The road to recovery has been a long one for David Morales, who was injured during the al-Qaida attack on the USS Cole 18 years ago last month. And he knew it would be difficult to collect the nearly $315 million that he and others wounded in the attack were awarded in their suit against the Republic of Sudan.

But he didn’t expect the case to go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and he certainly didn’t think he would see the Trump administration aligned with Sudan on the other side of the legal battle.

“I thought the United States would be on the side of its veterans,” Morales said in a recent interview. “It was very surprising, especially with Mr. Trump in office. It seems like he is in support of veterans. It kind of hurts.”

Years of litigation and millions of dollars in awards are on the line this week as the Supreme Court addresses a seemingly mundane question: whether notices of the lawsuits against Sudan were sent to the wrong address eight years ago.

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

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

Into this legal and diplomatic quagmire has stepped U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco. He, as well as Saudi Arabia and Libya, filed an amicus brief agreeing with Sudan.

“The United States deeply sympathizes with the extraordinary injuries suffered by respondents,” Francisco wrote in his brief to the Supreme Court. But “litigation against foreign states in U.S. courts can have significant foreign affairs implications for the United States,” he continued.