Chabad Seeks Civil Contempt Sanctions Against Russian Government In Expropriated Library Case

In an unusual legal move Monday, Chabad-Lubavitch filed a motion (full text) with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia asking it to impose civil contempt sanctions on the Russian government for Russia's failure to comply with a default judgment ordering it to return two valuable expropriated collections of Jewish books to Chabad. (See prior posting.) The motion filed in Agudas Chasidei Chabad of the United States v. Russian Federation suggests sanctions of at least $25,000 per day. Reporting on the filing of the motion, Blog of Legal Times quotes Chabad's attorney Nathan Lewin who said that a recent D.C. Circuit case imposing civil contempt sanctions on the Democratic Republic of Congo set the state for Chabad's motion.