JERUSALEM (AP):

An Israeli advocacy group won a $323 million judgment in a US court against Iran and Syria for supporting Palestinian militants that killed an American teenager and 10 others in a 2006 bombing, the group's director said yesterday.

Nitsana Darshan-Leitner of the Shurat HaDin Israel Law Centre that represents victims of Palestinian violence said Tuesday that the group had won courtroom victories against Iran but never before against Syria.

The centre was representing the family of 16-year-old Daniel Wultz of Florida, who was among 11 killed when an Islamic Jihad suicide bomber set off his explosives at a Tel Aviv restaurant six years ago. Daniel's father was severely injured in the attack.

Iran supports Jihad

Darshan-Leitner said that Iran supports the Islamic Jihad movement financially while Syria had granted the group a haven to train in its territory.

US District Judge Royce Lamberth said in the Monday ruling: "When a state chooses to use terror as a policy tool, as Iran and Syria continue to do, that state forfeits its sovereign immunity and deserves unadorned condemnation. Barbaric acts like the April 17, 2006, suicide bombing have no place in civilised society and present a moral depravity that knows no bounds."

An American lawyer representing Syria argued the case should be dismissed on the grounds of "sovereign immunity," but the court dismissed it.