Bloomberg: A federal judge ordered Iran to pay $310 million to a victim of the 1984 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Lebanon and his mother after determining that the country provided support to Hezbollah terrorists who staged the attack. By Cary O’Reilly
Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) — A federal judge ordered Iran to pay $310 million to a victim of the 1984 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Lebanon and his mother after determining that the country provided support to Hezbollah terrorists who staged the attack.
U.S. District Judge Ellen Huvelle in Washington awarded $7 million in compensation to Richard Brewer, who was working as a security guard at the embassy at the time of the attack and who was injured in the explosion. The judge also awarded $2.5 million to his mother for her emotional distress and $300 million in punitive damages.
The verdict is the latest multimillion dollar award by a U.S. court against Iran over that country’s alleged support of terrorism. U.S. courts have awarded more than $3.5 billion over the last four years to U.S. victims of Hezbollah bombings. Iran hasn’t contested the trials or paid any of the judgments.
“Hezbollah received substantial funds and support from Iran via its Ministry of Information and Security and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps,” Huvelle wrote in her order late yesterday. “This court concludes that defendants provided ‘material support and resources’ to Hezbollah” in carrying out the attack, the judge said.
On Sept. 20, 1984, a suicide bomber drove a truck packed with explosives through the gates of the U.S. Embassy Annex building in East Beirut, Lebanon, and detonated it, killing 14 people and wounding 35, including Brewer.
Sixty-three people were killed, including 17 U.S. citizens, in the April 1983 bombing in Beirut, the first large-scale attack against a U.S. embassy. A suicide bombing six months later killed 241 U.S. Marines at a Beirut barracks.
The latest case is Brewer v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 08- 0543, U.S. District Court, District of Columbia (Washington).
