Iran’s mullahs in trouble because of foreign nationals’ kidnappings

Islam Mohamed

Iran has been ordered to pay $1.45 billion to the family of Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who went missing 13 years ago in Iran and is now believed to be dead.

The U.S. District Court in Washington ordered Iran to pay Levinson’s family $1.35 billion in punitive damages and $107 million in compensatory damages for his kidnapping.

The ruling by Judge Timothy J. Kelly was published on Thursday. The lawsuit, filed in March, 2017, seeks unspecified damages from Iran, in part for inflicting emotional distress on Levinson’s wife and seven children.

The family announced in March that Levinson had died in Iranian custody after receiving corroborating evidence from U.S. officials.

They said his death came prior to the coronavirus pandemic.

The court cited the case of American college student Otto Warmbier, who died in 2017 shortly after being freed from captivity in North Korea, in explaining its decision to award such a large amount of money to Levinson’s family.

Iran holds in its custody a large number of foreign nationals, including some people with dual nationality, with the aim of blackmailing the governments of their countries.

Tehran has resorted to the kidnapping of foreign nationals and taking them hostage to serve its foreign policy agenda since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Major countries have been trying to put pressure on Iran to improve human rights conditions in it.

This comes against the background of the suffering those with dual nationalities sustain in Iranian custody.

Iran has previously tried to extort money from the United Kingdom by arresting and putting in prison an Iranian-British female journalist. It asked London to repay $400 billion the government of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi paid Britain for arms that had never been handed over to Tehran.