Return
to Story Page
To print: Select File and then Print from your
browser's menu
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON, JUNE 27: Two dissident groups hostile to the governments of Iran and Sri Lanka have lost a legal bid to be removed from the US State Department's list of terrorist organisations.
A federal appeals court, in an opinion released on Friday, said the law left the judges little room to decide whether Secretary of State Madeleine Albright acted properly in declaring the groups have engaged in terrorist acts that threatened the national security of the United States.
The three-judge panel said it was not for the court to decide whether the People's Mojahedin Organisation of Iran and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of Sri Lanka committed terrorist acts.
``As we see it, our only function is to decide if the Secretary, on the face of things, had enough information before her to come to the conclusion that the organisations were foreign and engaged in terrorism,'' wrote judge A Raymond Randolph of the US Court of Appeals for the district of Columbia circuit.
``Her conclusion might bemistaken, but that depends on the quality of the information in the reports that she received something we have no way of judging,'' he wrote for the court.
Once a group goes on the list, its bank accounts become subject to seizure and it becomes illegal for US citizens knowingly to contribute financial support.
The law governing the list does not require the government to present information that would qualify as ``evidence'' in a court, the appeals panel said, and any classified information the Secretary of State used in reaching a conclusion may continue to remain secret.
Unclassified information presented to the court said the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was founded in 1976 to push for a separate Tamil state in Sri Lanka. According to the State Department, the group has used violent means, including bombing and political assassination, to achieve its goal.
The People's Mojahedin Organisation is Iran's largest and most active Iranian dissident group, according to the State Department. Itsprimary goal is the overthrow of the Islamic Iranian government and the establishment of a secular republic.
The group was formed in the 1960s and ``its history is studded with anti-Western activity,'' that has included violence and terrorism, according to a CIA intelligence research paper quoted in the opinion.
The court said neither group appears to have property or accounts in the United States.
``A foreign entity without property or presence in this country has no constitutional rights, under the due process clause or otherwise,'' it said.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
------------------------------------------------------------
This story was printed from Net Express located at http://www.expressindia.com. Net Express provides a portal to India, with news from The Indian Express and The Financial Express along with sites on travel and tourism, the entertainment industry, the power sector, the environment and much more.
------------------------------------------------------------