Lenders Don’t Decide Who’s a Terrorist, Arab Bank Argues

Governments, and not banks, decide who is or isn’t a terrorist, a lawyer for Arab Bank Plc told New York jurors as they prepare to decide if the Jordanian lender illegally aided the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Arab Bank is defending a civil trial in which victims of 24 mostly suicide-bomber attacks accuse it of helping finance terrorism by processing transactions for individuals that benefited Hamas. In closing arguments today, attorney Shand Stevens said all except one of the customers in the case weren’t designated as terrorists by the U.S., the United Nations or the European Union, he said.