By FRANK DAVIES
 Herald Staff Writer

 WASHINGTON -- Two senators who are retiring next year, Republican Connie
 Mack of Florida and Democrat Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, said Tuesday
 they will try to breathe new life into efforts to penalize governments that sponsor
 or allow attacks on U.S. citizens, including the Brothers to the Rescue
 shoot-down in 1996.

 Despite several court victories, two groups of victims' families have been unable to
 collect on foreign assets awarded by federal judges in two cases: the Cuban air
 force downing of two Brothers planes, killing four people including three U.S.
 citizens, and a terrorist bomb in Gaza, blamed on the government of Iran, that
 killed U.S. student Alisa Flatow in 1995.

 Clinton administration officials, citing national security issues and foreign policy
 prerogatives, have argued against and effectively blocked families' efforts to
 recover some Cuban and Iranian assets frozen in the United States.

 Families seek Cuban assets

 In the Brothers to the Rescue case, Senior U.S. District Judge James Lawrence
 King awarded the families $187.6 million two years ago. An appellate court in
 August ruled against trying to collect any funds owed to a current Cuban phone
 company while suggesting other sources of frozen assets.

 Mack and Lautenberg will seek to limit a president's authority to intervene in such
 cases. They say that was the original intent of the 1996 anti-terrorism law,
 backed by the administration, which allowed U.S. citizens to pursue personal
 injury claims against governments classified by the State Department as
 sponsors or supporters of terrorism.

 ``What the administration has done is the height of hypocrisy in this case,'' Mack
 said Tuesday. ``The president embraced the families and encouraged them to
 pursue this, then when they sought to make good on their judgments, the families
 found their way blocked by the administration and its legal bureaucrats.''

 Mack said he has worked quietly ``on the inside'' with the administration, but
 continued to meet resistance.

 ``So I'm going to speak out to anybody who will listen, because this is so wrong,''
 said Mack, a senator who usually avoids talk shows and press conferences.

 Relatives applaud effort

 Relatives of the Brothers to the Rescue pilots killed in the shoot-down said they
 have focused on court actions until now, but hope the two senators' efforts will
 help publicize the issue in Washington.

 ``This was not supposed to be just a paper law,'' said Maggie Khuly, sister of
 shoot-down victim Armando Alejandre Jr. ``And this is not just our case -- it's for
 others, like the Pan Am 103 families.''

 A suit by victims' relatives against Libya in the Pan Am bombing case may go to
 trial next year.

 Mack, like Lautenberg, decided not to seek reelection next year, and Khuly
 hopes this will aid their cause: ``No one can say this is politics. This issue
 doesn't have a high profile but we hope this will help.''

 Iran ruled liable in bus bombing

 In the case of Flatow, a 20-year-old seminary student, U.S. District Judge Royce
 Lamberth ruled that Iran was liable for $247 million in damages as the sponsor of
 Islamic Jihad, the terrorist group that claimed responsibility for the Gaza bus
 bombing. Iran denied it had any connection to the group.

 In the Brothers case, Judge King ruled Cuba was liable because its pilots
 committed a ``terrorist act'' over international waters. Cuban officials called the
 Brothers flights a provocation and said U.S. courts had no jurisdiction in the
 matter.

 But the big question has been: How do you collect? In the case of Cuba, the
 State Department argued that garnishing telephone funds could jeopardize
 telecommunications service to the island, which Cuban officials threatened to cut
 off.

 State Department backs off

 ``We have the deepest sympathy for the families, but this service is an essential
 part of our humanitarian outreach to the Cuban people,'' a department spokesman
 said Tuesday.

 Roberto Martinez, a former U.S. attorney in Miami and member of the legal team
 representing the families, said Mack's initiative ``would make it significantly
 easier'' to recover damages.

 He said recent debates over terrorist issues, including the administration's
 clemency for members of a violent Puerto Rican group, ``may give us a window of
 opportunity to get this through.''
 

                     Copyright 1999 Miami Herald