US court: Iran owes $1.4B over ex-FBI agent presumed dead

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By JON GAMBRELL

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A U.S. judge has ordered Iran to pay $1.45 billion to the family of a former FBI agent believed to have been kidnapped by the Islamic Republic while on an unauthorized CIA mission to an Iranian island in 2007.

The judgment this month comes after Robert Levinson’s family and the U.S. government now believe he died in the Iranian government’s custody, something long denied by Tehran, though officials over time have offered contradictory accounts about what happened to him on Kish Island.

Tensions remain high between the U.S. and Iran amid President Donald Trump’s maximalist pressure campaign over Tehran’s nuclear program. And though the U.S. and Iran haven’t had diplomatic relations since the aftermath of the 1979 U.S. Embassy hostage crisis in Tehran, America stills holds billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets that could be used to pay Levinson’s family.

In a ruling dated Thursday, the U.S. District Court in Washington found Iran owed Levinson’s family $1.35 billion in punitive damages and $107 million in compensatory damages for his kidnapping. The court cited the case of Otto Warmbier, an American college student who died in 2017 shortly after being freed from captivity in North Korea, in deciding to award the massive amount of punitive damages to Levinson’s family.



FILE - In this March 6, 2012, file photo, an FBI poster showing a composite image of former FBI agent Robert Levinson, right, of how he would look like now after five years in captivity, and an image, center, taken from the video, released by his kidnappers, and a picture before he was kidnapped, left, displayed during a news conference in Washington. A U.S. judge ordered Iran on Thursday, Oct. 1, 2020, to pay $1.45 billion to Levinson's family, who is believed to have been kidnapped by the Islamic Republic while on an unauthorized CIA mission to an Iranian island in 2007. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)


Read more: https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-international-news-dubai-iran-united-arab-emirates-c6830ec9885f15b89c6af34965844fab

[Miguelito Loveless]

1. Since when is a human life with $1.45 billion?

Any other time the US judicial system is involved with wrongful death claims due to criminal negligence on the part of US corporations, judges have routinely set aside far smaller awards as "excessive".

[pecosbob]

2. Stupid to compare it to Warmbier's arrest and mis-treatment

Warmbier was an entitled and boorish American traveler who did not deserve what happened to him. Levinson was actively spying on a sovereign nation and got exactly what he signed up for.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. This is my guess how this will roll out:

1. Court awards $1.4 billion to agent's family.
2. Iran protests.
3. Court issues order for the assets to be transferred from the frozen Iranian assets.
4. Assets disappear and never get to agent's family.
5. Trump Organization announces plans to erect five new Trump luxury hotels around the world.