ICJ rejects US claims on Iran's frozen assets

By Abdullah Asiran

THE HAGUE (AA) - The International Court of Justice (ICJ) rejected on Wednesday the U.S. objection on Iran's bid to recover $1.75 billion worth of frozen assets which the U.S. claims should go to victims of attacks linked to Tehran.

The ICJ has affirmed that it has the "jurisdiction" over the case filed by Iran in 2016 against the U.S.

The UN's highest court also dismissed the U.S.'s objection on Iran's alleged support of terrorism on the grounds of having no evidence in this matter.

In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Iran’s central bank must pay more than $2 billion in compensation from frozen U.S. funds to families of victims of a terrorist attack linked to Tehran.

The American court decided Congress acted appropriately when it passed legislation in 2012 that allowed the families to collect $2.6 billion in compensation from funds frozen in Iran’s central bank.

The compensation for the families of 241 Marines who died in a 1983 terrorist attack in Beirut, was handed down by a federal court in 2007.

The plaintiffs accused Iran of providing material support to Hezbollah, an Iranian backed Shia militia group, to conduct the 1983 truck bomb attack at the Marine compound in Beirut ,as well as other attacks, including the 1996 Khobar Towers truck bombing in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 U.S. soldiers.

The ICJ -- established in June 1945 -- is the principal judicial organ of the UN.