US courtroom orders Iran to pay out $879m to Khobar bombing survivors
A United States federal court held Iran in charge of the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia where US forces were housed, and ordered Tehran to shell out $879 million to survivors.
The Khobar Towers was a housing complex in the eastern city of Khobar, near to the Abdulaziz Air Basic and Saudi Aramco's headquarters in Dhahran, that housed American servicemen working on Procedure Southern Watch, reports Arab Reports.A vehicle bomb was detonated on June 25, 1996, around an eight-story setting up of the casing complex, which killed 19 US Air Force employees and a Saudi national and wounded 498 other folks.
The court ruled that the Iranian government directed and provided materials support to Hezbollah who detonated the 5,000-pound truck bomb, a Chicago lawyer news release said. The attackers reportedly smuggled the explosives found in the assault from Lebanon.
The lawsuit was brought beneath the terrorism exception of the US Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act by the 14 injured US airmen and 21 of their immediate family.The defendants in the event were posted as the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security.
"We will continue to seek to hold the Government of Iran in charge of this terrorist attack so long as is necessary," said Adora Sauer, the business lead attorney of MM Laws LLC.
US District Judge Beryl A. Howell identified the defendants liable and awarded the plaintiffs $132 million for pain and suffering, and prejudgment fascination, for a complete compensatory harm award of $747 million and $132 million for punitive damages.
The court also said the plaintiffs are eligible for partial payments from the US Victims of Point out Sponsored Terrorism Fund, which compensates American victims of acts of international terrorism with funds obtained from fines and forfeitures levied against companies caught illegally laundering money for sanctioned countries and persons. The attorneys as well intend to go after enforcement of the judgments through litigation designed to seize Iranian assets.
"The physical and mental toll about our families possesses been extremely huge, but this judgment is welcome current information. More than 20 years on, we wish the world to keep in mind the evil that Iran do at the Khobar Towers. Through the task of our attorneys, we plan to do that," explained Glenn Christie, a retired Oxygen Force personnel sergeant crew chief who was severely injured in the bombing.
