WASHINGTON (JTA) — The parents of an American teenager killed in a terrorist attack in Israel cannot collect damages from an alleged funder of Hamas.
The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal Tuesday brought by the parents of David Boim, a 17-year-old American killed in a 1996 drive-by shooting in the West Bank community of Beit El, Ha’aretz reported.
The Boim family, originally from New York City, moved to Israel several years ago. They had sued Mohammed Abdul Hamid Khalil Salah and numerous U.S.-based Islamic fund-raising organizations, saying they contributed money to Hamas and should be held fiscally responsible for Boim’s death.
Salah, a resident of suburban Chicago, served 4 1/2 years in Israeli prisons in the 1990s after $90,000 that authorities allege was meant to fund Hamas was discovered in his hotel room in eastern Jerusalem. He was in prison when Boim was killed.
A U.S. law that could have made Salah liable in Boim’s death was put into effect while he was in prison. However, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago said it did not apply to Salah because he was incarcerated at the time.
The Palestinian Authority tried one man responsible for the Boim’s death and sentenced him to 10 years in prison. A second man escaped but later died in a suicide bombing.
