"Chevron Defeats Terrorism Liability Lawsuit", 14 Aug 2018

A federal judge...struck down a lawsuit claiming Chevron funded deadly acts of terrorism through its illegal oil payments to former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.  Despite presenting “compelling evidence” that Chevron paid illegal kickbacks for cheap oil, the plaintiffs did not show a “direct connection” between those payments and acts of terrorism, U.S. District Judge James Donato concluded in his ruling...Baruch Yehuda Ziv Brill and 328 other named plaintiffs sued Chevron in 2015, claiming the oil giant put about $20 million into a slush fund that Saddam used to carry out crimes against humanity and lethal acts of terrorism in Israel...[T]he plaintiffs cited a 2004 investigation by the U.S. House of Representatives International Relations Committee that found Saddam diverted money from the United Nations Oil for Food program to pay millions of dollars to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers.  But Donato said the plaintiffs still could not prove how much of Chevron’s money was used for that purpose...Donato also dismissed 18 U.S. citizen plaintiffs’ claims that Chevron aided and abetted terrorism, finding they failed to allege the oil company “knowingly” supported suicide bombers...