First published at 20:35 UTC on August 4th, 2020.
'Its a slam dunk!"
Descendants of slaves filed a one (b) billion US dollar lawsuit against British insurer Lloyd''s of London and American tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds on Monday, accusing them of profiting by committing genocide …
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'Its a slam dunk!"
Descendants of slaves filed a one (b) billion US dollar lawsuit against British insurer Lloyd''s of London and American tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds on Monday, accusing them of profiting by committing genocide against their ancestors.
Lawyers for eight plaintiffs said the complaint - unlike past lawsuits seeking reparations for slavery - was the first to use DNA to link the plaintiffs to Africans who suffered atrocities during the slave trade.
The suit filed in US federal court in Manhattan accuses the corporations of "aiding and abetting the commission of genocide" by allegedly financing and insuring the ships that delivered slaves to tobacco plantations in the United States.
American banking company FleetBoston Financial Corp. was also targeted in the lawsuit.
DNA testing has made a "direct connection" between Farmer-Paellmann to the Mende tribe in Sierra Leone, whose people "were kidnapped, tortured and shipped in chains to the United States," the lawsuit said.
Similar scientific links have been made between the other plaintiffs and tribes in Niger and Gambia, the lawsuit said.
In January, a federal judge in Chicago threw out a similar lawsuit brought by descendants of slaves.
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