On Sept. 19, Bert Sacks had planned to ask a federal judge whether U.S. involvement in Iraq amounted to terrorism. But that judge's recent decision means Sacks will have to wait for his day in court.
Last month, the judge scheduled to hear United States of America v. Bertram Sacks, which levies a $10,000 fine against Sacks for "engaging with an enemy," ordered the case put on hold before Sacks could take the stand. "The most patriotic thing I've done is to try to get myself into court," says Sacks.
The U.S. government disagrees.
The allegation of engaging with an enemy results from a humanitarian trip Sacks took to the Persian Gulf in 1997. There, Sacks delivered medicine and supplies to sick and dying Iraqi children. But the U.S. claims his actions ran afoul of a U.S. embargo against Iraq and fined Sacks $10,000 ["An American citizen faces America's sins," RC, Jan. 19].
In early August, a federal judge ordered the U.S. government to show why the court should not dismiss the case and, with it, the fine. Specifically, the judge asked the United States to prove that the case, initiated in May 2002, was still timely.
Attorneys for the federal government replied to the judge in early September with a seven-page brief claiming the case -- and, therefore, the fine -- had no statute of limitations. By mid-September, two lawyers for Sacks argued in a 13-page brief that the statute of limitations to collect the fine had long passed. Both sides now await the judge's ruling on whether the case will be heard or dismissed.
Sacks says knowing the case could be dismissed has left him with mixed feelings. On one level, he says he would embrace not having to pay $10,000, a fine he says he cannot afford. (Sacks receives pro bono legal assistance from a local law firm.)
But if the judge throws out the case, Sacks says he won't be able to ask the court whether U.S. economic sanctions, which resulted in the deaths of more than 46,900 Iraqi children in 1991, amount to terrorism. A dismissed case, he says, stops his ability to argue that paying the fine means he'd be giving money to a terrorist organization: the United States.
And it also means, he says, that his 15-year crusade to inform Americans about the aftereffects of U.S. involvement in Iraq will be for naught.
"If the judge throws it out," Sacks says, "all this work disappears."