AFP: Iran said Saturday that a US federal court decision to fine Tehran 2.65 billion dollars for the 1983 bombing of a Marine barracks in Beirut was “baseless” and aimed at plundering Iranian assets. TEHRAN (AFP) Iran said Saturday that a US federal court decision to fine Tehran 2.65 billion dollars for the 1983 bombing of a Marine barracks in Beirut was “baseless” and aimed at plundering Iranian assets.
“This decision is baseless. Unfortunately some courts in the United States, without listening to the other side’s views and without investigation, issue verdicts that are not legally defendable,” Iranian government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham told reporters.
“These decision show political pressures to plunder Iran’s assets in the US,” he said, adding that Tehran would follow up the case through its representative at the United Nations.
On Friday, a US federal court ruled that the Islamic republic should pay out the sum to the families of 241 soldiers killed in the 1983 bombing.
The victims’ families hope to get restitution from Iranian funds blocked in US banks since the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic revolution in Tehran that overthrew the US-backed shah’s regime.
A previous court ruling in 2003 held that Iran provided financial and logistical help for the lethal 1983 attack allegedly carried out by Lebanon’s pro-Iranian militant group Hezbollah.
While Iran denies responsibility for the bombing, it played an instrumental role in the founding of Hezbollah in the 1980s.
US troops were deployed in Lebanon in 1982 as part of a UN-sponsored multinational peacekeeping force after the Israeli invasion in hopes of containing the country’s civil war.
Iran has dismissed the 2003 ruling holding it liable for the bombing.
Washington broke diplomatic ties with Tehran in 1980 after the Islamists students stormed its mission in Tehran taking US diplomats hostage for 444 days.
