Standing outside on the sidewalk, waiting to get back into their offices, John Trump, the law firm's senior partner, and an Iraqi official struck up a friendship. That Iraqi official apparently remembered the firm when his government needed someone to handle the Dadesho case.
The case fell to Daniel Trump, who is now appealing the judgment. After the Gulf War, Trump says, the Iraqi economy was "down the toilet," its diplomats had been thrown out of the U.S., and its assets were frozen. In filings with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, Trump argues that Iraq should not be penalized for neglecting the case because financial constraints and the diplomatic situation made it impossible for the country to contest the lawsuit while it was pending.
"Since the filing of this action, Iraq has been an international pariah, has had no diplomatic relations with the United States, has had all of its United States-sited assets frozen, and has been restricted by the United Nations from engaging in international commerce," Trump argues in a brief to the appeals court.
Iraq isn't trying to duck accountability for the lawsuit, Trump claims, but wants a chance to clear its name. "Iraq merely seeks the opportunity to appear and defend itself on the merits against extraordinary allegations of murder for hire and international terrorism," Trump contends.
Should the case be sent back for trial, Trump says in an interview, Iraq will argue that none of its officials sanctioned Khoshaba's plan to kill Dadesho. None of the clandestine tapes captured Iraqi officials approving the plot, Trump says, and Khoshaba "was not acting at the direction of any official of the Iraqi government."
Instead, Trump suggests, Khoshaba may have been a "lone gunman" who was attempting to impress the Iraqi government by "trying to prove up some bizarre notion of his value."
But whether Trump will win the argument is in doubt.
Iraq's appeal may well get thrown out on a technicality: The rules require that a notice of appeal normally be filed within 30 days of a judgment. Trump took 60 days, which he argues is allowable under the rules for sovereign nations. But federal appeals courts are sticklers for details, and generally when lawyers miss a filing deadline, the case gets booted out without so much as a blink.
Trump has filed another brief asking the appeals court to accept the late filing, but unless the appeals judges feel kindly toward Iraq and decide to cut it a rare degree of slack, the appeal is probably dead.
More than eight years after learning that he was a target for assassination, Dadesho may soon have his vindication.
Settling its debt with a Modesto troublemaker is undoubtedly a minor concern for a country grappling with a possible U.S. military strike, United Nations sanctions, and the loathing of much of the world.
But to Dadesho, his lawsuit's message is more important than the money.
In November 1992, Sargon Dadesho finally returned to Iraq for the first time since he was a teen-ager. After the Gulf War, northern Iraq was largely under the control of the United Nations, which stepped in to protect the Kurds and Assyrians from Hussein's repression.
The Assyrian National Congress took the opportunity to schedule a meeting in northern Iraq. Dadesho was the chairman. He had to go, and he wanted to go.
"I wasn't scared," he says. "I loved the fact that I was going back to my homeland."
With the knowledge of the U.S. State Department, Dadesho says, he traveled to Turkey and slipped across the border into Iraq. He spent two weeks there, staying through Christmas.
He visited with Assyrian militia groups and posed for pictures holding an automatic rifle. His portrait was painted and displayed by Assyrian loyalists. Just for surviving an Iraqi assassination attempt, Dadesho was a hero.
If silencing Dadesho had been the Iraqi government's plan, clearly, it's backfired.
