Iran orders US to pay compensation for nuclear scientists killed

The largely symbolic ruling underscores growing tensions between Iran and the West over Tehran’s rapidly evolving nuclear program, with negotiations to restore the tattered atomic deal to a standstill.

Although Tehran has accused Israel in the past of assassinations targeted by Iranian nuclear scientists from a decade ago, Iran did not directly accuse its archenemy Israel in its announcement. Iran has not recognized Israel since the 1979 Islamic Revolution which ousted the pro-Western monarchy and brought Islamists to power.

The court only mentioned Israel by saying that the United States supported the “Zionist regime” in its “organized crime” against the victims.

It is unclear how the court’s decision, like a series of previous Iranian cases against the United States as the two sides engaged in a spiral of threats, would have caught on; there are no American assets to be confiscated in the Islamic Republic.

However, the court branch, which is dedicated to reviewing Iranian complaints against the United States, has summoned 37 former American officials, including former Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, as well as former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the former Iranian envoy Brian Hook and former Defense Secretary Ashton Carter.

Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018 and imposed tough economic sanctions on Iran that cut most of its oil revenues and international financial transactions.

President Joe Biden wanted to return to the deal, but in recent weeks talks have stalled over the American designation of the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization.

Meanwhile, Iran is enriching uranium closer than ever to weapons quality levels under dwindling international control. Earlier this month, Iran removed 27 surveillance cameras from the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency in what its director warned could deal a “fatal blow” to the nuclear deal.

Families of three nuclear scientists who were killed in targeted killings, along with a nuclear scientist injured in an attack, filed a lawsuit in Tehran, the country’s state-owned IRNA news agency reported, without identifying the plaintiffs. The court ordered the United States to pay $ 4.3 million in full compensation, including fines.

Iran and Israel have been locked in a shadow war across the Middle East and its waters. That conflict has escalated with the recent alleged targeted killings of Iranian nuclear scientists and military officials. In late 2020, Iran accused Israel of killing its lead nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, with a remote-controlled machine gun while traveling by car outside Tehran.

Iran has also sanctioned prominent US political and military officials for alleged “terrorism” and “human rights violations”, in retaliation for the US assassination of Iran’s commander-in-chief, Qassem Soleimani, two years ago. .