From Judge Tiffany Cartwright (W.D. Wash.) in Friday's Jan v. People Media Project:
Plaintiff Almog Meir Jan is an Israeli citizen who was kidnapped on October 7 and held hostage by Hamas operative Abdallah Aljamal before being rescued by the Israel Defense Forces. Defendants are People Media Project, its individual officers Ramzy Baroud and John Harvey, and unnamed Doe Defendants 1 through 10.
Jan alleges that Defendants employed and compensated Aljamal as a journalist and provided him a U.S.-based platform to publish articles supporting Hamas. Jan asserts that through these actions, Defendants aided and abetted his kidnapping and imprisonment as well as aided and abetted terrorism in violation of the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), 28 U.S.C. § 1350.
Defendants moved to dismiss …, arguing that Jan's allegations are insufficient to state a plausible claim that Defendants aided and abetted his kidnapping and Hamas's acts of terrorism. Defendants also assert that their decision to publish Aljamal's articles is protected by the First Amendment, and that Jan's claims do not overcome the ATS's presumption against extraterritoriality because the conduct relevant to the ATS's focus—kidnapping and imprisoning a civilian hostage—occurred outside the United States. In response, Jan argues that the ATS recognizes aiding and abetting as a cause of action, and that aiding and abetting illegal conduct is not protected speech. By compensating Aljamal and providing him a U.S.-based platform to publish articles justifying Hamas's actions, Jan argues that Defendants materially supported terrorism. Jan asserts that this domestic conduct is the gravamen of his ATS claims and is sufficient to overcome the presumption against extraterritoriality….
The court rejected the claims based on publishing pro-Hamas propaganda, for reasons discussed in a separate post. But here's what the court had to say about the claims based on providing funds to Hamas via Aljamal:
