Iran, labeling it as an act of ‘injustice’, rebuffed on Tuesday attempts by United States Lawyers to seize its overseas assets as compensation for the victims of the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The US Supreme Court ruled last year that $2.1 billion frozen in a Citibank account in New York should be given to the US victims of the 1983 bombing.
Since Iran rejects the accusation and refuses to pay the money, the lawyers are now trying to access $1.6 billion of Iranian money frozen in a Luxembourg bank, AFP cited a report published in The New York Times on Monday.
“Some opponents of Iran … have tried to broaden a US domestic law – which is completely unfair and baseless – to apply outside America,” said deputy foreign minister Majid Takht Ravanchi, according to the Tehran-based IRNA news agency.
Billions of dollars in Iranian assets were frozen in the US and Europe as part of efforts to push Tehran into a nuclear deal with world powers, which was finally signed in July 2015.
Some of Iran’s assets remain frozen despite the deal, in part due to ongoing compensation cases – not just for the 2001 attacks but also the bombing of a US Marines barracks in Lebanon in 1983 that killed 241 American personnel.
In 2012, a New York judge ordered Iran to pay $7 billion in damages to the families and estates of victims from the 2001 attacks, arguing the country had aided terror group Al-Qaeda by allowing the group’s members to travel through its territory.
Default judgments from various cases against Iran have so far added up to more than $50 billion in compensation, although no money has yet been delivered.
Asharq Al-Awsat English
Asharq Al-Awsat is the world’s premier pan-Arab daily newspaper, printed simultaneously each day on four continents in 14 cities. Launched in London in 1978, Asharq Al-Awsat has established itself as the decisive publication on pan-Arab and international affairs, offering its readers in-depth analysis and exclusive editorials, as well as the most comprehensive coverage of the entire Arab world.
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