Iran owes $1.4B over missing ex-FBI agent: US court

By Ovunc Kutlu

ANKARA (AA) - A US court has ordered Iran to pay more than $1.4 billion in damages for the familiy of a missing former FBI agent, who disappeared 13 years ago and is presumed dead.

Judge Timothy J. Kelly of the US District Court for the District of Columbia said in his ruling that ex-FBI agent Robert Levinson's family would be grated $107 million in compensatory damages and $1.3 billion in punitive damages.

"Iran’s conduct here is also unique, given that -- astonishingly -- it plucked a former FBI and DEA special agent from the face of the earth without warning, tortured him, held him captive for as long as 13 years, and to this day refuses to admit its responsibility," Judge Kelly said in his ruling on Thursday.

Levinson had disappeared on Iran’s Kish Island in March 2007 while he was investigating Iran's oil profits, according to reports.

While Levinson's family said earlier this year that the former FBI agent died in Iranian custody based on information they have from US officials, Tehran denied that by saying Levinson had left Iran years ago.

Washington and Tehran do not have formal diplomatic relations since the US Embassy hostage crisis in 1979.

While US President Donald Trump adopts a "maximum pressure" policy on Tehran, the US government holds frozen Iranian assets worth billions of dollars, which could be used to pay Levinson's family.

The US Supreme Court in April 2016 had ruled that frozen Iranian money could be turned over to US terrorism victims. The ruling had stated that Iran’s central bank must pay more than $2 billion in compensation from frozen funds to families of victims of a terrorist attack linked to Tehran.