Dubai emir will not be tried in the U.S.
New York. The Dubai emir will not have to face a U.S. judge in the camel jockeys case. On Monday July 30 2007, a federal judge ruled in Miami that the U.S. did not have jurisdiction to hear a class action lawsuit accusing Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashed al-Maktoum of enslaving children jockeys for camel races. The magistrate dismissed the plaintiffs’ argument that the emir and his brother, Sheikh Hamdan, could be tried in Florida on the basis they owned businesses and property there. The lawsuit was filed in September 2006 by US lawyers on behalf of thousands of children mainly from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sudan and Mauritania, who had been forced to ride racing camels in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), of which Dubai is part. The case of the camel jockeys was seen as the U.S. class action lawsuits going global because the plaintiffs and their parents did not live in the US either. The ruling is a major blow for Motley Rice, a prominent law firm which had brought the case. John A. Thornton, a lawyer for the children, did not return phone calls asking him for comment. Abuses against children jockey in the UAE are documented. In 2005, a report published by the State Department said that thousands of children from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Mauritania and Sudan, some as young as 3 or 4, were trafficked and used as camel jockeys. The report also mentioned sexual and physical abuses. In her ruling, judge Altonaga said that “because the court concludes that it lacks personal jurisdiction over the identified defendants, it does not reach or address the merits of the other arguments raised”. Lawyers for the thousands of children had based their lawsuit on the 1789 Alien Tort Statute. According to this text, foreigners who say they were injured “in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States”, can file a lawsuit in the US even if the abuse took place abroad. Beth Stephens, a law professor at Rutgers and an expert on the Alien Tort Statute, said in a recent interview with the.point.is. news agency that “defendants must have been physically present in the US at some point and must retain ties with the US” for attorneys to use the 1789 Statute. According to attorneys for the plaintiffs, the Dubai leaders still own property in Florida and Kentucky. Judge Cecilia Altonaga ruled it was not enough to try the case in the U.S. “We have said from the beginning that this case does not belong in U.S. Courts and we are gratified by Judge Altonaga’s careful analysis and ruling”, said Dr. Habib Al Mulla, representative of Sheikh Mohammed and Sheikh Hamdan. This lawsuit has distracted attention from the truly important efforts by the UAE and UNICEF to provide life-changing social services and financial compensation to boys formerly employed as camel jockeys” Sheikh Mohammed had written a letter to George Bush last February, asking him to intervene. UAE authorities say they have banned the use of children jockeys and replaced them with remote-controlled robots. They also claim that 1,077 children have been repatriated since 2005 and point out that UNICEF support their efforts. Last April, they increased the compensation fund to about $11 million. But the parents of the camel jockeys say the program did not provide for any punishment against individuals responsible for enslaving children. Jean-Cosme Delaloye CommentsYou must be logged in to post a comment. |
||
 |
 |
 |
