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The United States Congress votes at the end of arduous negotiations on a bill that would grant Sudan immunity from any new prosecution in the United States related to previous terrorist attacks, in a step that falls within the framework of the historic agreement recently concluded by the two countries.
The bill provides for “restoring the sovereign immunity of Sudan in the United States, except pending cases before the federal justice” related to the attacks of September 11, 2001, as announced by the two senators.
Democrats Chuck Schumer and Bob Menendez in a joint statement.
Likewise, the text presented to Congress on Monday foresees an aid of $ 700 million to Sudan, and an additional $ 120 million that will be used to pay off its debts with the International Monetary Fund.
This legislation is part of a large supplement to the United States budget that includes a new plan to support the economy in the face of the repercussions of the Covid-19 pandemic.
This step comes after the United States last week removed Sudan from its list of countries that support terrorism, thus opening the doors to obtain American financial aid and removing one of the most prominent obstacles that impeded the flow of foreign investment to he.
In October, US President Donald Trump announced the removal of Sudan from the US list, Sudan, under an agreement that stipulated that Khartoum paid $ 335 million in compensation to the families of the victims of the two attacks. with a bomb perpetrated by Al Qaeda in 1998 against the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and a third attack by the organization. In 2000, the American destroyer “USS Cole” was attacked off the coast of Yemen.
These attacks resulted in the deaths of more than 200 people, and the United States held Sudan partly responsible, since Khartoum was home to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden at the time.
Khartoum transferred the value of these offsets to a frozen escrow account in the United States, but the release of these funds depends on. Under the agreement, the US Congress passed the law to restore Sudan’s immunity from prosecution.
Arduous negotiations were carried out between the United States Department of State and members of Congress with the aim of reaching a compromise on the formula by which this legislation would be approved.
They wanted Senators Schumer and Menendez. Representing, respectively, New York and neighboring New Jersey, two states from which a large number of victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks come, that the legislation be drafted in a way that does not deprive the families of these victims of their right to sue Sudan for harboring the Al Qaeda leader responsible for those attacks.
The Trump administration did its best to pass this legislation in Congress in order to show, first of all, its clear support for the Sudanese transitional authorities two years after the outbreak of the uprising that ousted President Omar al-Bashir, and secondly, to prevent Khartoum from finding any excuse to evade its historical recognition of Israel.
Sudan had recently warned that this obstruction could lead to “delaying the implementation of the normalization agreement” with Israel.
Since its inclusion on the US list of states that support terrorism in 1993, Sudan has lost its sovereign immunity and has become vulnerable to litigation in terrorism-related cases before US courts.
Source: French press agency
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