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Friday November 24 6:19 PM ET
Vatican Asks U.S. Court to Dismiss Nazi-Gold Lawsuit
By Michael Kahn
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001124/ts/holocaust_vatican_dc_1.html
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The Vatican's bank has asked a U.S. court to throw out a lawsuit charging it with laundering gold and other assets stolen by a Nazi puppet regime, arguing that the Vatican has immunity because it is an independent state, lawyers in the case said Friday.
Meanwhile, the Vatican itself has asked the U.S. government to intervene in the case, a move that lawyers for the plaintiffs say could signal a settlement, but one that others familiar with the case say does not.
The class-action lawsuit accuses the Vatican Bank along with the Franciscan Order and the Swiss National Bank of laundering hundreds of millions of dollars in gold and other assets looted by Croatia's brutal Nazi-allied Ustasha regime from 1941-1945.
The Franciscan Order has also asked the court to dismiss the case, while the Swiss National Bank has not yet been served. The Vatican's California lawyer declined comment, referring queries to court papers filed earlier this week in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.
``Plaintiffs lack standing to bring a general challenge to the wartime political decisions of a foreign sovereign,'' the Vatican bank argued in its 41-page filing.
The Vatican asked the U.S. government last month to intervene in the lawsuit, prompting Jonathan Levy, one of the plaintiffs' lawyers, to say he hoped this meant the Vatican wanted to negotiate.
Levy said he would ask the court next week to stay proceedings in the case until the note is clarified. He added, ''It is unclear what they are asking for but perhaps they are asking to negotiate. The Vatican to date has refused to address any of the allegations so intervention could be a good thing.''
But Elan Steinberg, executive director of the World Jewish Congress, said on Friday it was doubtful the U.S. government would do so.
He noted the United States has only gotten involved in similar lawsuits where the defendants have expressed a willingness to cooperate and reach a settlement. This is not the case with the Vatican, which so far has failed to open up its wartime archives, he added.
``Under no circumstance should the U.S. government -- and I don't think it can -- intervene to prevent any such lawsuit,'' he said in a telephone interview.
The lawsuit, originally filed in November 1999, seeks restitution and an accounting of the looted assets. It also accuses the Vatican and other banks of helping to secretly transfer money from the Ustasha treasury out of Yugoslavia, which was then used to help Croatian and Nazi war criminals escape Europe after the war.
But even though there is documentation implicating the Vatican in both laundering and accepting looted Nazi gold, Steinberg called this particular lawsuit a ``weak'' one.
``I am very unimpressed with the lawsuit being pursued, which doesn't really relate to the evidence that is out there,'' he said. ``This case does not go to the heart of the Vatican's involvement.''