WASHINGTON – Catherine Votaw recalled bursting into tears four years ago after walking into the U.S. embassy in London and seeing a young Marine guard standing watch.
The guard reminded Votaw of a man who had died in the 1983 terrorist bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut, Lebanon — the same bombing that killed her father.
“I was sobbing,’’ said Votaw, a former federal prosecutor who lives in Washington. She had traveled to London that day in 2011 to take depositions in a case she was handling.
The 2001 terrorist attacks in Manhattan, Washington and Pennsylvania, which killed about 3,000 people, are an emotional touchstone for the nation. Often overlooked are the victims, including Votaw’s father, of terrorist acts overseas.
Family members of those victims are channeling their grief and anger into support for legislation that would create a compensation fund of about $1 billion for victims of state-sponsored terrorism.
The money would go to people injured in a terrorist attack overseas or to family members of people killed in an attack, once they receive a federal court decision ordering compensation. The bill was recently introduced by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and Republican Reps. Steve Chabot of Ohio and Lamar Smith of Texas.
“It's hard to say how many individuals qualify,’’ Michael Woeste, a spokesman for the House Judiciary Committee, said in an email. “There are over 80 cases and some of the cases have hundreds of plaintiffs. We do know that at this point over $12 billion in compensatory damages are owed.’’
Stuart Newberger, an attorney who has handled many of the resulting damage suits, says about 1,000 Americans have died in terrorist attacks in foreign countries since the early 1980s. Many were civilian employees of the U.S. government.
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