NEW YORK TIMES
by Stephanie Clifford and Jessica Silver-Greenberg
August 14, 2014

The judge called it the Beirut account. It was a basic bank account at Arab Bank’s Al-Mazra branch in Beirut, Lebanon, unremarkable except for the name on the account: Osama Hamdan, a spokesman for the terrorist group Hamas. For the six years Mr. Hamdan maintained the account, at least three wire transfers sent to it were earmarked for Hamas, transactions that officials at Arab Bank vetted and initialed, the plaintiffs say.

Now, the Beirut account is at the center of a trial in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, where the plaintiffs say the case will shed light on the shadowy and interconnected network that finances terrorists. The account and ones like it make up a critical financial infrastructure for a network that, at times, operates like a Social Security system for terrorists, the plaintiffs say. Family members were instructed to go to Arab Bank branches to collect charitable funds after their relatives died in a terrorism attempt, the plaintiffs say.

While American authorities have prosecuted banks for processing tainted money, this is the first civil trial against a bank under the Anti-Terrorism Act. Opening arguments are scheduled for Thursday.

One of the plaintiffs, Sarri Anne Singer, then a New Jersey resident, was on bus No. 14A in Jerusalem in June 2003 to meet a friend for dinner. A suicide bomber a few seats away detonated his bomb, killing at least 16 people. Ms. Singer was struck by shrapnel, and survived the attack, for which Hamas claimed responsibility. Another group of plaintiffs, the Sokolow family, lived on Long Island and was vacationing in Israel in 2002. They were exiting a shoe store near their hotel when a suicide bomber blew herself up. Mark and Rena Sokolow and two of their daughters, Jamie and Lauren, all suffered injuries. The plaintiffs allege that charities like the Saudi Committee sent payments to terrorists and their families that the bank processed, pointing to a Saudi Committee spreadsheet that listed “the names of martyrs and their beneficiaries, as well as the martyrs’ causes of death,” according to an order from Judge Gershon……