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US appeals court nixes Vatican Bank Holocaust suit

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-12-30 09:39
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VATICAN CITY: An American appeals court has dismissed a lawsuit by Holocaust survivors who allege the Vatican Bank accepted millions of dollars of their valuables stolen by Nazi sympathizers.

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The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld a lower court ruling that said the Vatican Bank was immune from such a lawsuit under the 1976 Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which generally protects foreign countries from being sued in US courts.

Holocaust survivors from Croatia, Ukraine and Yugoslavia had filed suit against the Vatican Bank in 1999, alleging that it stored and laundered the looted assets of thousands of Jews, Serbs and Gypsies who were killed or captured by the Nazi-backed Ustasha regime that controlled Croatia.
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