Iran has sued the United States at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), attacking the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that Iran must pay compensation to the victims of terrorist attacks it sponsored.
A thousand families of Iranian terror victims already won a massive judgment against Iran in 2007, suing for compensation from atrocities such as Iran-sponsored Hezbollah’s 1983 attack on the U.S. Marine base in Beirut, and the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, as reported by Israel National News.
Iran was furious that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of these American families in mid-April, putting Iran’s central bank on the hook for almost $2 billion in compensation. The assets will be collected from Bank Markazi’s frozen funds under the auspices of the 2012 Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act, which the bank’s lawyers unsuccessfully argued was an unconstitutional exercise of congressional power.
“The government has powerfully stood against the practice of this ruling because these assets belong to the nation and should be spend for its welfare,” thundered Iranian Vice President for Legal Affairs Elham Aminzadeh, announcing the lawsuit at the International Court of Justice.
Israel National News recalls that Iran responded to the Supreme Court’s ruling by calling it “a theft of the assets and properties of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Iran’s “moderate” President Hassan Rouhani declared that “a court or judiciary in a corner of the world [that] wants to decide about the Iranian nation’s rights and properties is fully illegal, and against the international laws and the central banks’ legal immunity.”
Rouhani called the Supreme Court ruling “international robbery” and a sign of America’s “continued enmity towards Iran.”
The families of Iran’s victims likewise feel the lives of their loved ones were stolen, and their murders were evidence of Iran’s continued enmity toward the civilized world.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif denounced the U.S. for “taking decisions against Iran which contradict the international laws,” which is also how Iran typically described the sanctions that were lifted by President Obama’s nuclear deal. He said that Iran would ignore the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Zarif promised last week that Iran would “hold the US administration responsible for preservation of Iranian funds.” If “plundered,” he vowed to “lodge a complaint with the ICJ for reparation.”
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s foreign policy adviser, Ali Akbar Velayati, has declared that Iran would insist on “safeguarding its rights, and will retrieve the money” seized by the Supreme Court decision.
The New York Times reported in late April that Iran’s cabinet was setting up a workgroup, headed by their finance minister, to find a way to reclaim Iran’s “rights.” Evidently, the strategy they concocted includes filing suit at the International Court of Justice.
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