Nathan Lewin of Washington's Lewin & Lewin, also a lead attorney for Chabad, said that if the Russian government still refuses to return the texts, they'll seek to satisfy the sanctions using guidelines set out in the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.
"I just hope that what this does is it will bring the defendants to a realization that this matter is not going to end simply by their refusing to comply or their claiming that there's no jurisdiction," Lewin said.
A spokesman for the Justice Department, Charles Miller, declined to comment. A representative of the State Department could not immediately be reached for comment.
This article first appeared on The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times.
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