TEHRAN: Iran’s international court has ordered the US government to pay $330 million in damages for “planning a coup” against the Islamic republic in 1980, the judiciary said on Saturday.

A year after the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the US-backed Shah, a group of mostly army officers tried to overthrow the new government.

State news agency IRNA said the “insurgents” were led by Saeed Mahdiyoun, a former Iranian air force commander, and had their headquarters in Nojeh, an air base in the western Hamedan province. “Their objective was to seize control of military bases across the country and target strategic centres and residences of the revolution’s leaders. However, their efforts were thwarted,” it added.

Several people were killed in the coup while scores of others were arrested.

Last year, relatives of those killed in the coup filed a petition with Iran’s International Court seeking damages, the judiciary’s Mizan Online website said. They specifically accused the United States of “planning and executing” the coup, Mizan said.

The court ruled in their favour, ordering “the American government to pay the plaintiffs $30million in material and moral damages, and $300 million in punitive damages”.

Frozen assets

The US Supreme Court in 2016 ordered that Iranian assets frozen in the United States should be paid to victims of attacks Washington has blamed on Tehran, including the 1983 bombing of a US Marine barracks in Beirut and a 1996 blast in Saudi Arabia.

In March, the International Court of Justice ruled that Washington’s freezing of funds belonging to several Iranian “individuals and companies” was “manifestly unreasonable”, and expressed lack of “jurisdiction” on the question of unblocking nearly $2 billion assets frozen by the United States.

Published in Dawn, August 27th, 2023