By Xinhua
Tehran : Iran on Saturday lashed out at a recent U.S. court decision to fine the Islamic Republic 2.65 billion U.S. dollars for the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon, terming the verdict was “baseless.”
“This is a baseless decision, some U.S. courts issued verdicts without investigation and listening opinions from the other sides,” government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham told local reporters here.
“The verdict is not legally defendable, and we can see the political pressure from the decision to grab Iranian assets in America,” he added.
A U.S. federal court ruled on Friday that Iran must pay 2.65 billion dollars to the family members of the 241 U.S. servicemen killed in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon.
According to a previous ruling of the same federal judge in 2003, Iran was held responsible for the 1983 suicide attack.
The suicide attack was carried out by Hezbollah with the approval and funding of Iran’s government officials, the judge said then.
Hezbollah, or Party of God, is based in Lebanon and has waged a campaign for dozens of years against Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon as a self-declared security zone.
Hezbollah, blamed for anti-western and anti-Israel terrorist acts dating from 1980s, is on the U.S. State Department’s official list of terrorist organizations.