Iranian President Hassan Rohani said Tehran is preparing to appeal to the International Court of Justice to recover $2 billion that the U.S. Supreme Court ordered to be paid to American victims of terror attacks.
"We will bring the case to The Hague in the near future," Rohani said on May 10 in a televised speech. "We will not allow the United States to swallow this money so easily."
The U.S. court ruled on April 20 that Iran must hand nearly $2 billion in frozen central bank funds to the relatives of those killed in attacks Tehran has been accused of organizing.
The ruling affects over 1,000 Americans whose relatives were killed in a 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut and the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia.
While those attacks occurred decades ago, an American imprisoned in Iran and freed in January filed suit this week seeking damages for torture he allegedly endured in Evin Prison.
His lawyer said he would attempt to recover the damages from Iran's frozen funds if, as expected, Iran does not agree to pay restitution.
