Cleric Deplores US Seizure of Iran’s Assets as ‘Highway Robbery’

“They (the Americans) looted two billion dollars of your money,” Ayatollah Khatami said in an address to a huge gathering of worshipers here in Tehran on Friday.

The US made the move under the pretext that Iran has had a hand in the 1983 bombing in the Lebanese capital, the cleric said, adding that however, Washington has to provide evidence to prove the allegation.

He further pointed to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s recent remarks on the issue, saying that the president has adopted a good stance.

Speaking at a cabinet meeting in Tehran on Wednesday, President Rouhani referred to the US Supreme Court ruling on seizure of Iran’s blocked assets as “a blatant robbery and a major legal scandal for the US”, saying the move is indicative of Washington’s continued hostilities toward the Iranian nation.

“They (the Americans) should be aware that the rights of the Iranian people cannot be violated and plundered,” he said, adding, “No thief can take pride in his theft and think what he has stolen belongs to him.”

Rouhani further made assurances that the Iranian nation will never retreat one iota from its rights and that his administration will spare no efforts to restore the rights of the people.

On April 20, the US Supreme Court upheld the Congress and President Barack Obama’s actions to hold Iran financially responsible for the 1983 bombing that killed 241 Marines at their barracks in the Lebanese capital, Beirut.

The ruling allows the families of the Marines and victims of other attacks that courts have linked to Iran to seize some $2 billion in assets held in New York’s Citibank, belonging to the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), which has been blocked under US sanctions.

In 2012, the US Congress passed a law that specifically directed the American bank to turn over the Iranian assets to victims’ families. Obama also entered the battle in an effort to force the payments on Iran.