Jury Finds N.Y. Port Authority Can Be Sued Over ’93 Trade Center Bombing

The Port Authority of New York was negligent in the 1993 terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center and can be sued for damages.

A State Supreme Court jury in Manhattan has decided that the Port Authority, which owned the World Trade Center, should have provided better security for the underground parking garage that was hit by Islamist militants in Feb. 1993. The bombing killed six people and injured more than 1,000.

The case was brought by families of the victims and by business to determine liability. There will now be individual trials to determine how much each plaintiff should receive.

A lawyer for the Port Authority told The Associated Press that his client would appeal the verdict.

During the trial, jurors heard about a 1985 Port Authority security report that called for additional guards, random searches and even the closing of the public section of the garage to protect against bombings of the kind that occurred. The public section was not closed.

In 1988, Ramzi Yousef was sentenced to life without parole for his part in the bombing.