An appeals court yesterday upheld the dismissal of a 50 million US dollar lawsuit against the United States over then-President Bill Clinton’s 1998 decision to order a missile attack on a Khartoum pharmaceutical plant.
Mr Clinton ordered the cruise-missile attack on the factory and on a training camp in Afghanistan in retaliation for the bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania Al-Qaeda carried out days earlier.Mr Clinton said the El-Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries plant in North Khartoum was believed to be producing materials for chemicals weapon and it had connections witn Bin Laden.
The plant’s owners denied it was a chemical weapons facility or that it was in any way connected to Al-Qaeda.
The owners sued the US government for destroying the plant, failing to compensate them for the destruction and for defaming them by saying the plant had ties to with Al-Qaeda.
A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit and the appeals court in a unanimous decision agreed.