Libya Unlawful Detention

Libya Claims: Unlawful Detention in 2013

United States views on international law [1] in relation to Libya Claims: Unlawful Detention: In Claim No. LIB-II-183, Decision No. LIB-II-178 (2013), the Commission revisited its preliminary determination of compensation for a claimant who had been unlawfully detained on a different occasion than all other claimants within a particular category of the claims program. The final decision of the Commission, dated February 15, 2013, and excerpted below, was to award compensation for this particular claimant in the same amount as others under the January 2009 referral letter within the same category. Specifically, claimant had been preliminarily awarded $282,000 for her detention over the course of several months in Libya, during which she was held in hotels and other locations without her passport, but without constant, severe, or imminent threat to her life. The recommendation for others in her category, all of whom had been taken hostage in an airplane hijacking, was an award of $1 million.

Some Aspects of Libya Claims: Unlawful Detention

The January Referral Letter specifically addresses compensation for Category A claimants with the following recommendation: “[g]iven the amount we recommended for physical injury claims in our December 11, 2008 referral, we believe and recommend that a fixed amount of $1 million would be an appropriate level of compensation for all damages for a claim that meets the applicable standards under Category A.” As noted in the Proposed Decision, this claim was the only claim under Category A that did not arise from the hijacking of Pan Am Flight 73 in Karachi, Pakistan on September 5, 1986. See PD at 14.

Developments

The Commission has also previously held that the language of the January Referral Letter demonstrated that the State Department's recommendation of compensation for Category A was based on the level of compensation it recommended for physical injury claims under the December Referral Letter. Claim of. [redacted], Claim No. LIB-II-002, Decision No. LIB-II-002 (2011) (Final Decision), at 8. In [redacted], the Commission specifically noted that the recommended $1 million for Category A claimants “was based not on the intrinsic value of the claims for hostage-taking or unlawful detention, but rather on the relationship of such claims to physical injury claims, which were valued at $3 million.” Id.

Details

During the proceedings on the objection, counsel for claimant acknowledged that the intensity of claimant's ordeal did not approach the horror endured by those aboard Pan Am Flight 73. Yet, counsel persuasively argued that the duress claimant experienced during her detention and the length of her detention together warrant her being treated, for purposes of this claims program, exactly like the Pan Am Flight 73 Category A claimants. In particular, the Commission is persuaded that her claim bears the same relationship to the physical-injury claims as that described in [redacted]. Consequently, having considered claimant's arguments in support of her objection, the complete record in support of the claim, the January Referral Letter, and applicable law, the Commission finds that claimant is entitled to $1 million in compensation for her unlawful detention in Libya.

Resources

Notes

1. Libya Claims: Unlawful Detention in the Digest of United States Practice in International Law