An Iranian court has ordered the U.S. government to pay nearly $50 billion in damages for the 2020 assassination of Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Iraq, the court announced Wednesday.
This condemnation comes nearly four years after the death of the Quds Force commander, who was responsible for external operations of the Revolutionary Guards, the Islamic Republic’s ideological army, in an American drone strike in Baghdad on January 4, 2020.
President Donald Trump said at the time that he had ordered the attack in response to attacks on US interests in Iraq.
In response, Iran fired missiles at American soldier bases in Iraq.
“Based on the lawsuit of 3,318 compatriots from all over the country (…), a court in Tehran ordered the American government to pay a total of $49 billion and $770 million in moral and material damages,” the Mizan Justice Department told Online.
According to Mizan, the court found 42 people and entities guilty, including Donald Trump and officials in his administration.
In support of this belief, Tehran accuses Washington of being “accomplices” of Israel in its war in the Gaza Strip against the Palestinian movement Hamas. The United States blames Iran, which supports Hamas, for attacks by pro-Iranian groups against American troops in Iraq and Syria.
Qassem Soleimani, the architect of Iran’s military operations in the Middle East, remains a revered figure among Islamic Republic supporters.
Iran and the United States have not had diplomatic relations since 1980, a year after the overthrow of the Shah.
In October, an Iranian court ordered the U.S. government to pay $420 million in compensation to victims of a 1980 military operation that attempted to free diplomats held hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the freezing of Iranian assets in the United States to compensate victims of attacks attributed to Iran.