By Xinhua
Washington : A US federal court ruled Friday that Iran must pay $2.65 billion to the family members of the 241 US servicemen killed in the 1983 bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon.
“The court hopes that this extremely sizable judgement will serve to aid in the healing process for these plaintiffs, and simultaneously sound an alarm to the defendants that their unlawful attacks on our citizens will not be tolerated,” Federal Judge Royce Lamberth said in his ruling from a federal court in Washington DC.
Family members of the victims, “whose hearts and souls were forever broken, have waited patiently for nearly a quarter century for justice to be done,” Lamberth said.
In May 2003, Lamberth ruled that Iran was responsible for the 1983 suicide bombing of a US marine barracks in Beirut.
Hezbollah carried out the suicide attack with the approval and funding of Iran’s government officials, Lamberth said.
Hezbollah, or Party of God, is based in Lebanon and has been for years waging a campaign against Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon as a self-declared security zone.
Hezbollah is blamed for anti-western and anti-Israel terrorist acts dating from 1980s and is on the US State Department’s list of terrorist organisations.