A Court in Tehran Fines the U.S. One Billion Dollars for 'Participation in the Establishment of SAVAK' and 'Support for the Pahlavi Regime'

The Tehran Public and Legal Court has fined the United States over one billion dollars for what it termed 'participation in the establishment and expansion of SAVAK' and 'support' for the Pahlavi regime. The Organization of Intelligence and National Security, SAVAK, was founded during the Pahlavi regime in 1956 and was dissolved in 1979. Among SAVAK's missions were gathering information to maintain national security, uncovering espionage, countering violators of anti-monarchy laws and armed resistance, military offenders, and those attempting to assassinate the Shah and the Crown Prince. Numerous reports of torture of political prisoners during SAVAK's operational period have been published, although some supporters of the Pahlavi regime deny these reports. The state-run news agency Mizan, affiliated with the judiciary of the Islamic Republic, claimed on Saturday, April 20, that this case was formed with the complaint of '15 political prisoners before the revolution' of 1979 in Branch 55 of the Tehran Public and Legal Court. This government news agency, without mentioning the names of the plaintiffs, stated that these former prisoners have 'proven' that without the support of the U.S. government for the Pahlavi regime, they would not have suffered 'serious physical, psychological, and social harm.' This comes at a time when the Islamic Republic has repeatedly been condemned in international legal forums, including U.S. courts, for reasons such as 'human rights violations' and has faced heavy fines. In one of the latest cases, a U.S. federal court found the Iranian government guilty of torturing Abbas Amir-Entezam, the spokesman for the provisional government, and ordered the Islamic Republic to pay 19.5 million dollars in damages. Additionally, following the complaint of Jason Rezaian, a Washington Post journalist who was imprisoned for 18 months in the Islamic Republic's jails, a U.S. federal court in 2019 ordered the Iranian government to pay 180 million dollars to this political prisoner. The Islamic Republic and Syria were fined 191 million dollars in the case of the murder of an American citizen residing in Israel, and some families of Hamas victims are seeking approximately one billion dollars in compensation from Tehran. Amir Hekmati has sued the U.S. Department of Justice for rejecting his 20 million dollar compensation request, and the Islamic Republic has been condemned to pay damages to the children of Abbas Amir-Entezam.