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U.S. Supreme Court rules Iran regime must pay compensation to terror victims

1983-bombing

The United States Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that almost $2 billion in frozen assets of the Iranian regime must be turned over to American families of people killed in the 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut and other attacks blamed on Iran’s fundamentalist regime.

The court’s 6-2 ruling dealt a setback to the Iranian regime’s central bank, finding that the U.S. Congress did not usurp the authority of American courts by passing a 2012 law stating that the frozen funds should go toward satisfying a $2.65 billion judgment won by the families against Iran’s regime in U.S. federal court in 2007.

Bank Markazi had challenged a 2014 ruling by the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the money, held in a Citibank trust account in New York, should be handed over to the American plaintiffs, Reuters reported.

The ruling, written by liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, said the U.S. Congress did not violate the separation of powers principle enshrined in the U.S. Constitution that gives specific authority to the government’s executive, legislative and judicial branches.

Ginsburg rejected the notion that the law infringed upon the role of courts by indicating how a case should be decided, saying that it instead “directs courts to apply a new legal standard to undisputed facts.” It was left to the courts to determine how that standard should be implemented, she said.

The lawsuit was brought by more than 1,000 Americans who have waged a long legal battle seeking compensation for attacks they say Iran’s regime orchestrated. Congress inserted itself into the dispute by passing the law to help the American plaintiffs obtain the Iranian funds.

The plaintiffs accused Iran’s regime of providing material support to Hezbollah, the group responsible for the 1983 truck bomb attack at the Marine compound in Beirut that killed 241 U.S. service members.

They also sought compensation related to other attacks including the 1996 Khobar Towers truck bombing in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 U.S. service members.

The case is Bank Markazi v. Peterson, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 14-770.

Mohammad Mohaddessin, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), in his book “Islamic Fundamentalism: The New Global Threat” (published in 1993) included a clipping from the Iranian state-run newspaper Ressalat which on July 20, 1987 carried a quote from Mohsen Rafiqdoost, Minister of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) at the time, who said: “Both the TNT and the ideology which in one blast sent to hell 400 officers, NCOs, and soldiers at the Marine Headquarters have been provided by Iran.