BEIJING (AFP) — Bank of China, one of the nation's big four state-owned commercial lenders, Wednesday denied it facilitated terrorism, responding to accusations in a US lawsuit filed by a group of Israelis.
"The accusations are baseless and do not make sense... The Bank of China will respond to the suit to clarify and ensure a correct understanding of the facts by going through the legal procedures," bank spokesman Wang Zhaowen said.
"(We) will reserve the right to lodge a counter-claim and other necessary legal actions. We believe the US court will make just rulings in accordance with the law and the facts," he said in a statement on the bank's website.
The bank said it had followed international and domestic financial terrorism and money-laundering regulations, adding that its internal rules also ban service to any terrorist groups.
The 100-some plaintiffs were described in documents filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court last week as victims in "a series of terrorist attacks" carried out in Israel by two Palestinian groups between May 2004 and January 2007.
The suit alleges that the bank provided "extensive banking services" to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad and that those services "enabled and facilitated" the attacks.
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