Middle East banks sued for funding ISIS's Christian genocide

A California-based non-profit group sued two Middle Eastern banks and a sheikh for allegedly funding Islamic State's atrocities in Iraq and Syria.

According to Courthouse News Service, St. Francis of Assisi in Alameda, an organization that supports and assists refugees, filed the complaint in Federal Court on June 13. The group accused Kuwait Finance House, Kuveyt-Turk Participation Bank, and Hajjaj al-Ajmi for breaching the U.S. Antiterrorism Act as well as the international law through its means of financial assistance on terrorism and support for genocide.

The complaint identified al-Ajmi as the Kuwaiti-born Sunni-cleric who campaigned for donations through Twitter which were then funneled through Kuwait Finance House and Kuveyt-Turk Participation Bank to support terrorists targeting the killing and displacement of Assyrian Christians.

The cleric already has a record as a fundraiser for Al Nusra Front, al-Qaeda's wing in Syria, that led to his detention in August 2014 by Kuwaiti authorities.

"To successfully plan, fund, and carry out the killings of members of [St. Francis of Assisi], ISIS relies upon an open, notorious, well known, and formalized system of terrorist financing which incentivizes and incites the killings and displacement of the Assyrian Christians," read a statement in the 19-page complaint.

As the horrific stories told by escaped victims surfaced and depicted a grim picture of how the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) tortured, killed, and systematically raped their captives, the European Parliament in February recognized the terrorist group's atrocities against the Christians and religious minorities in Iraq and Syria as genocide. In March, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry followed suit and recognized the Islamist group's genocide with the intent of "ethnic cleansing."

"My clients have lost everything," St. Francis' attorney Mogeeb Weiss told Courthouse News. "They've lost their property, livelihoods, members of families that have been murdered systematically. It's very important, for no other reason than it is so unprovoked, other than religious beliefs."

Weiss is demanding compensation for the damages suffered by his clients.