Ok, everyone has been talking about freezing Bin Laden’s money, but who gets to keep the money? The banks? The government? Who?
I know that in past wars, companies whose assets were frozen were often run by the country that froze them.
For example, during WW2, IBM’s German subsidairies were run by the German government, and even made a profit which was kept by the subsidiary. After the war, when assets were unfrozen, the companies returned to the original owners. This went on with most assets on all sides of the war. I was under the impression that this was normal procedure. (This is from the book IBM and the Holocaust. I don’t have pages or exact quotes on this, but I will look for the book tomorrow after work if anyone needs them.)
If this is still true, how do we ever unfreeze the terrorists frozen assets? A country can change governments, or negotiate for peace. How does a dead terrorist get his stuff back, and who gets it when he dies?
There was an article over 3 years ago about freezing terrorists’ finances, and specifically mentioning bin Laden:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/archives/foreignpolicy/benLadin.htm
My understanding is that the money is used to “make whole” those who have been defrauded. For example, if the money is traced to organizations which claimed tax exemption status but which defrauded the government in its claim, then the government is the victim and would get the money. My personal feeling is that if the owners of the accounts are shown to be liable for the huge losses in NY, etc., then that money should be used to pay the city for its firemen, cleanup, etc., efforts.
I didn’t know it until recently, but the U.S. froze Japanese and Chinese assets in 1941: