By Richard Simon and H.G. Reza Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON — Edwena Hegna waited 18 years for a measure of justice for the murder of her husband by terrorist hijackers.

Yesterday, she got it when President Bush signed into law a bill letting victims of terrorism collect multimillion-dollar judgments from about $4 billion in frozen assets of suspected terrorist groups and the seven nations the U.S. accuses of sponsoring terrorism.

"I know my husband's looking down," she said after attending the bill signing at the White House. "The sense of relief after 18 years is just so overwhelming."

The provision was part of a terrorism-insurance bill Bush has touted as an economic-stimulus measure. The core of the bill will provide federal backup insurance against damage caused by future attacks.

"We're defending America by making our economy more secure," Bush said.

But it was the lesser-known provision dealing with the frozen assets that drew victims of terrorism and their families to the White House.

"One way to confront terrorist organizations is to hit them in the pocketbook," said Rep. Vito Fossella, R-N.Y., a leading sponsor of the bill in Congress.

It is unknown how many people are affected by the provision, but it is estimated to be in the hundreds. The lawsuits range from terrorist bombings in Israel to kidnappings in Iraq and confinements in Kuwait and Libya.

Hegna had written Bush reminding him that his father, then the vice president under President Reagan, had promised "justice would be served" when her husband's flag-draped casket arrived home in 1984.

Charles Hegna, 50, father of four and an auditor for the U.S. Agency for International Development, was flying from Kuwait to Pakistan when Hezbollah militants hijacked the plane to Tehran, Iran. Hegna was beaten, shot in the stomach and shoved out the airplane door to the tarmac. As he lay on the ground, he was shot again.

Earlier this year, Hegna's family won a $42 million court judgment against Iran.

Six years ago, Congress gave victims of terrorism the right to sue countries on the State Department list of nations that sponsor terrorism: Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria. No Syrian funds are now blocked.

But Americans who have won court cases for attacks on them or their families have had difficulty collecting.

The State Department resisted releasing the assets, contending they could be an important bargaining chip in U.S. diplomacy. Officials also worried releasing the funds could provoke attacks on U.S. property abroad.

"(Foreign) assets are blocked in the national interest, so they can be used as leverage and bargaining chips with states not friendly with the U.S.," said a State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The assets "are also used to assist our foreign policy in dealing with successor regimes that turn out to be friendly to the U.S."

The legislation is expected to pave the way for release of the funds, families of victims and their attorneys said.

"Finally, the victims are going to see justice," said Dan Wolf, an attorney representing Americans who say they were seized and used as "human shields" on potential targets in Iraq when President Saddam Hussein's government invaded Kuwait in 1990. All were released shortly before the Persian Gulf War.

Wolf's clients include Jack Frazier, who has been waiting to collect $1.7 million 12 years after he was held hostage by Iraq.

"Even if we don't get the money by Christmas, it'll still be a good Christmas present," said Frazier's wife, Deanna. "Jack isn't doing well at all. He will never get over what happened. He sometimes feels like a forgotten man."

When Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, Frazier was a field superintendent for Bechtel at an oil refinery outside Baghdad.

At the time, he had a mild case of diabetes that was controlled with medication. But Iraqi soldiers took away his medicine, and Frazier's condition worsened during his almost three months in captivity. When he was released in October 1990, he had lost sight in his right eye.

His medical problems worsened over the years, and he is mostly confined to a wheelchair and has problems feeding himself, his wife said. Today, the couple lives in Lake Havasu City, Ariz., where Frazier is in a care facility.

"We've gone through gangbusters to get justice for Jack," his wife said. "We never expected justice from Hussein. But we also didn't expect our government to side with Hussein when we tried to collect his award from the court."

The legislation was prompted by last year's terrorist attacks, which have led to insurance claims put at $40 billion to $50 billion.

Responding to insurance-company warnings that they could be ruined by another attack, the new law creates a three-year, $100 billion program under which the government will cover 90 percent of terrorism-related losses after companies pay an initial amount. Insurers will be responsible for the remaining 10 percent.

Under the law, the government could aid the industry on terrorism-related claims that surpassed $5 million. Insurance companies would pay deductibles ranging from 7 to 15 percent of the premiums they received the previous year. The federal government then would cover 90 percent of everything above the deductible, with the companies paying the other 10 percent.

"Should terrorists strike America again, we have a system in place to address financial losses and get our economy back on its feet as quickly as possible," Bush said.

The taxpayer burden would be softened somewhat by a provision enabling the Treasury to impose a surcharge of 3 percent or less on policyholders to recoup a portion of any federal-insurance payments.

But the cost-sharing plan heavily favors the industry, critics said, and essentially turns the federal government into the insurer of last resort.

Economist Stephen More, who heads a political-action committee supporting conservative candidates, said the bill "smacks of corporate welfare. It's basically a giveaway."

Critics challenged the president's claim that $15 billion worth of construction projects were at stake, saying the insurance industry and commercial real-estate developers who provided the figure used inflated, unsubstantiated numbers.

"That number is nonsense," said Rob Hunter, a spokesman for the Consumer Federation of America. "This is nothing more than an insurance-company bailout."

The Real Estate Roundtable, an organization that developed the numbers, said it could provide no specific projects that have been held up.

Sung Won Sohn, chief economist at Wells Fargo Bank, was skeptical of the bill. He said the private sector would have stepped forward to insure the buildings if the administration had not been so eager to protect insurers.

"And right now, we've got a building glut," Sohn said. "I don't understand why anyone would want to be building anything right now."

Nonetheless, Bush said, hospitals, office buildings, malls, museums and many transportation companies have had difficulty finding terrorism insurance since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Information from The Associated Press and the Chicago Tribune is included in this report.

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2002