Tehran court rules against US

An Iranian businessman abducted in a sting operation by American undercover customs agents 12 years ago has successfully sued the US government in a Tehran court, which last week awarded him half a billion dollars in damages.

Hossein Alikhani says his damages would have to be paid from US assets in Iran and could involve a claim against the sprawling American Embassy in Tehran.

A State Department spokesman in Washington said Friday that the US government "hasn't yet seen the judgment and [it] will need to be served through the normal diplomatic channels" before the US can comment. The US government declined to send lawyers or appoint local representatives to defend itself in Iran.

The two countries have not had diplomatic relations since 1980, when militant Islamic students seized the US Embassy in Tehran and held 52 American diplomats hostage for 444 days.

Alikhani's unprecedented legal challenge follows rulings by US courts to hold the Iranian government responsible for huge damages awarded to Americans held hostage by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon during the 1980s.

Mr. Alikhani, a Cyprus-based businessman, maintains his legal action was motivated by principle.

"At some stage when ties are renewed, all this will have to be resolved, so I suggested Iran do cases so it could have files to match the US ones," says Alikhani, who has written two books about US sanctions against Iran and Libya. "I don't want to be a [monkey wrench] in relations between the two countries, but if Iran has to pay compensation, then so does the US."

Alikhani's attorney, Bruce Zagaris of Washington, predicts his client's victory could set a precedent for a flood of actions against the US government in Iranian and other foreign courts.

Victims of Iraqi chemical-weapons attacks, for example, could sue the US for supporting Iraq in the eight-year war against Iran in the 1980s.

But Jim Kriendler, a New York attorney who has represented US victims of the Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, in suits against Libya, rejects such comparisons.

"It's not a question of doing the same thing," says Mr. Kriendler. "I've yet to hear anyone alleging the US backs groups murdering innocent victims."

A US law adopted in 1996 strips countries on the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism of their immunity from lawsuits in American courts for terror acts perpetrated against American citizens. Since then, American courts have awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in damages to victims of terror overseas in countries including Cuba, Israel, and Lebanon.

In the most recent case, a federal court in Florida last November awarded $318 million to the family of CIA agent William Buckley, who was kidnapped in Beirut in 1984 and later killed. And a trillion-dollar lawsuit filed last August by victims of the Sept. 11 terror attacks names the government of Sudan as one of several defendants.

Any claim Alikhani makes against the US embassy would also be in response to A US law passed last year that allows American citizens to make claims against the diplomatic assets of countries which the State Department deems to be sponsors of terrorism.

Gary Sick, an Iran expert at Columbia University, says the US made a mistake by allowing Americans to collect such large damages in these uncontested cases. "If we could play that game, others can play that game too," says Mr. Sick, who served at the National Security Council under three presidents. "They have people who feel they have grievances and it provides a way for them to go after us. It's a hopeless and endless process."

Sick says the Iranian court's judgment will only complicate matters when and if the two countries attempt to normalize relations.

Alikhani was seized in the Bahamas in 1992, accused of violating American sanctions against Libya, and held for more than four months. (See details below.) He was "kidnapped" because the sanctions did not apply to non-American citizens living outside the United States.

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