Families of Two September 11 Victims Win Approximately $104 Million Judgment Against Iraq and Al Qaeda

George Eric Smith, 38, was a senior business analyst at SunGard Asset Management, on the 97th floor of the World Trade Center's South Tower. Minutes after the first plane hit the North Tower he telephoned a SunGard vice president to say his building was on fire and was told to get out. The second plane struck his tower between the 73rd and 82nd floors, and the court found no direct evidence of when he died. Timothy Soulas, 35, was a senior managing director and partner at Cantor Fitzgerald Securities in the North Tower. He was married with five children and his wife was three months pregnant. A client who spoke to him on a squawk box just after the plane hit, and again twenty minutes later, described Soulas saying the exits were blocked and that they were trapped. He tried his wife's line several times; she answered and heard only static.

Raymond Anthony Smith, administrator of his half-brother George's estate, sued in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on November 14, 2001, and the executrix of Timothy Soulas's estate filed her own suit the next day. The cases were consolidated in January 2003 under the caption Smith v. Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, and the complaint was amended to add Saddam Hussein and the Republic of Iraq to defendants that already included the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the Taliban, al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. James E. Beasley of The Beasley Firm in Philadelphia represented both families. The claims against the al Qaeda defendants ran under the Anti-Terrorism Act, which trebles damages, and the claims against Iraq under the terrorism exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act and the Flatow Amendment.

No defendant appeared or answered. The court entered defaults and narrowed the case to a two day inquest on damages in March 2003. Two experts testified on whether Iraq shared responsibility: R. James Woolsey, Director of Central Intelligence from 1993 to 1995, and Dr. Laurie Mylroie, who had written on Iraq and terrorism. Judge Harold Baer excluded much of the plaintiffs' other material as inadmissible hearsay, including a Czech ambassador's letter about a reported Prague meeting between Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence officer and Secretary of State Colin Powell's remarks to the United Nations Security Council. He held that the experts' opinion testimony alone carried the plaintiffs' burden, writing that they had shown, 'albeit barely,' that Iraq provided material support to bin Laden and al Qaeda, and he refused to award punitive damages against any defendant.

The closing section of the May 7, 2003 opinion set out the award. For the Smith estate and heirs, all defendants were jointly and severally liable for $1,113,280 in economic loss and $1,000,000 for pain and suffering, the al Qaeda defendants were liable for a further $4,229,560 under the treble damages provision, and Iraq was liable for loss of solatium totaling $4,750,000 to four of his relatives. For the Soulas estate and heirs, all defendants were jointly and severally liable for $15,139,203.19 in economic loss and $3,000,000 for pain and suffering, the al Qaeda defendants for a further $35,278,406.38, and Iraq for solatium totaling $39,000,000 to his widow, his father, his six children and his four siblings. The Second Circuit later summarized the result as total damages of approximately $104 million, with Iraq responsible for approximately $63.5 million. It was the first September 11 case to reach a damages phase, and the lawyer who brought it called the ruling a significant victory.

Collecting was a separate fight, and it has failed twice. The families first went after Iraqi central bank money blocked at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. On October 3, 2003 the Second Circuit affirmed dismissal of that action, holding that the President had vested the blocked funds in the U.S. Treasury under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act before the plaintiffs obtained their judgment, so nothing blocked remained to execute against. After the Taliban retook Afghanistan in 2021, the Smith and Soulas plaintiffs were among the September 11 creditors seeking turnover of Afghan central bank reserves held at the same bank. The district court denied those motions in February 2023, and on August 26, 2025 the Second Circuit affirmed, holding Da Afghanistan Bank's assets immune from execution and outside the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act because the bank was not an agency or instrumentality of the Taliban when the funds were blocked. Dion G. Rassias of The Beasley Firm appeared for the Smith plaintiffs on that appeal.

The judgment has never been appealed or disturbed on the merits, and no source found shows that any part of it has been paid.