Jewish pioneer of foreign government terrorism lawsuits dies at 74

Allan Gerson, a lawyer who pursued Nazi war criminals and pioneered the practice of suing foreign government in US courts for complicity to terrorism has died at the age of 74.

Gerson died Sunday at his home in Washington, DC, from complications of the degenerative brain disorder Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, his wife, author Joan Nathan, said, according to The Washington Post.

A deputy assistant attorney general under US President Ronald Reagan, Gerson was also a child of Jewish refugees who fled Poland during the Holocaust.

His father had been a bookkeeper at a family candy store, and his mother was a dressmaker. They spent part of World War II in Siberian labor camps. Gerson was born in Samarkand in June 1945. After the war, the family adopted false identities to secure US immigration visas.

As a Justice Department trial lawyer, Gerson pursued Nazi war criminals who immigrated to the United States. He later became senior counsel to two US ambassadors to the United Nations and advocated for the victims of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which remains the deadliest terrorist attack in British history. The flight exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, killing all 259 passengers and crewmembers, along with 11 people on the ground.

He later was part of a team representing many families of those killed in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He also wrote several books on international law, and taught at George Mason University.

He’s survived by his wife and relatives including his three children, a brother and two grandchildren.

— AP