Vatican Bank case petitioned in court
Survivors of the Croatian Nazi death camps have filed a petition at the US Appeals Court in Northern District of California for a rehearing of the so called Vatican Bank case that has already been dismissed.
“The petition points out the Ninth Circuit made errors of law and fact in its recent decision granting the Vatican Bank immunity and requests a rehearing,” tells us Dr. Jonathan Levy who is also an attorney in the case.
The petition claims that the error in judgment occurred because the Ninth Circuit treated the so-called Vatican Bank as a non-commercial government enterprise when in fact, argues the petition, it also engaged in commercial business and that should not exempt it from being responsible for transferring the loot that Croatian Nazis acquired from killed Serbs and Jews in WWII.
Croatian Catholic Archbishop Stepinac with Ustashi Nazis.
Formally known as the Institute Of Religious Works, the Vatican Bank was formed 11 months after Croatia created the death camp in Jasenovac. Following the collapse of Hitler, Nazi Croatia transferred at least 200 million Swiss Francs to the Vatican Bank, notes the petition.
“It is a reasonable presumption whose validity will have to await discovery that the new stream of Croatian funds helped build the Vatican Bank,” argues the petition.
The petition argues that the case is not reducible to “a mere post-war looting of assets” nor was the cash conversion of the property stolen from killed Serbs simply “religious or charitable” activity but a commercial one.
“But the Bank clearly ‘operates’ on the looted property by selling it and converting it into cash, by storing gold in its vaults as bank reserves (available to cover loans but not necessarily owned by the Bank), and by using it to cover loans to customers,” points the petition.
The petition finally points to the law where a “foreign state shall not be immune” if owning an operating looted property.
An Ustasha guard poses among the bodies of prisoners murdered in Jasenovac concentration camp.
“No one knows exactly where the [Croatian] Ustasha Treasure is today, that is the purpose of the lawsuit, to make the Franciscans and Vatican Bank tell what happened,” says Dr. Jonathan Levy.
Dr. Levy notes that the ethnic Croatians – Father Dominick Mandic from the Franciscan order and Father Krunoslav Draganovic who was a Vatican official – handled the funds at the time.
“After their death, we believe the Vatican Bank, Franciscan Order in Rome, and the Croatian Custos at St. Anthony’s Friary in Chicago took over,” Dr. Jonathan Levy says.
The filed petition is also descriptive of the Croatian brutality that may have underpinned the initial capitalization of the Vatican Bank.
A Croatian death camp guard, Petar Brzrca, for example, won a prize after he beat out his competition and managed to slice 1,360 Serbian throats in one day. Croatian citizenry would gather across the barbed wire to watch a spectacle of hungry dogs having a feast on little Serbian babies held by their mothers who were just let into, by the hundreds, inside a fenced-in area of the camp.
“The Petition for En Banc and Rehearing was filed by plaintiff Holocaust survivors and organizations. Professor Anthony D’Amato of Northwestern University School of Law was the author of the petition in attempt to turn things around,” tells us Dr. Jonathan Levy.
No hearing on the petition has been scheduled yet but the Ninth Circuit is set to reply.
The Vatican Bank lawsuit that was just overthrown dragged in the court for 10 years.
“The lawsuit against the Franciscans is also still on appeal with the Ninth Circuit with are opening brief due later this month,” says Dr. Jonathan Levy.
On the web:
Vatican Bank Claims
January 16, 2010
SERBIANNA
After reading this I will only treat a Croat as an associate but never as a good friend.
This is so sick, and the worst part of it is that they would do it again given the opportunity.
Yes we saw what they would do if given the chance when the Empire helped them with the Blitzkrieg in Krijina and butchered the old people.
all of this was a common knowledge for last 60yrs, but nobody in the west cared to raise the issue. after all, its just Serbs.right?
Nazis still have powerful allies.
@kanuk
Ordinary people in the West were never told this in the first place. Neither have we been told the full story about the Jugoslavia wars of the 90s.
There is so much about our own WWII history they don’t tell us, espcially when it comes to the Vatican and their link to the extermination of the Jews.
Human beings are the cheapist commodity.
Joe A.
You are right,thats why i have made it my business over the years to find out the facts,if you depend on the BBC and all the other western media they only tell you what the establishment wants you to know.
@Dony
Right on the spot Dony.
Thanks to the Internet we can find out for ourselves what to believe, and not on the government/big corporations sponsored media.
YES ITS ALL OUT THERE IF YOU LOOK.
Just keep informing as many people as you can…..don’t let the indifference you will encounter discourage you….the TRUTH must be told.
Oh, please. It is all load of crap.
It remains a horror. As a convert to Catholicism I found it so unbelievable I contacted many of the overseas journalists and Legal Counsels to confirm what I had been reading.
Many Australians including my Catholic friends Religious and aquaintances have had no idea of these things done in their name (Catholics).
We have had our own terrible history of sex-abuse and the cover up to deal with.
The US Government was approached for Diplomatic immunity to prevent being sued on that matter too.
If they can do this to us their own, God knows what other attrocities they are capable of if there are any others left under the sun to commit.
It’s wonderful there are men and women assisting the cause of justice so doggedley on these issues.
I continue to follow the on going saga and I hope I see it resolved in my lifetime if not in the lifetime of those concerned.