Copyright 2000 The Jerusalem Post

The Jerusalem Post

December 8, 2000, Friday

SECTION: JEWISH WORLD; Pg. 22

Officials with the Vatican's bank asked a US court to throw out a lawsuit charging it with laundering gold stolen by a Nazi puppet regime during World War II. The officials argued last month that the Vatican has immunity because it is an independent state. The class-action lawsuit being heard in a San Francisco court accuses the Vatican Bank of having been involved in laundering hundreds of millions of dollars in gold and other assets looted by Croatia's puppet regime between 1941 and 1945.