U.S. wants judge to toss embassy hostage suit

Source: MSNBC

U.S. wants judge to toss embassy hostage suit
Justice Dept. argues that agreement to free Americans precluded lawsuits

BREAKING NEWS
updated 1 hour, 40 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration has asked a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit against Iran filed by Americans held hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran 30 years ago.

The request comes in a $6.6 billion class-action lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington. Fifty-two American diplomats and military officials were held captive for more than a year at the end of Jimmy Carter's presidency by a group of Islamist students who supported the Iranian revolution.

The hostages were released on Jan. 20, 1981, just minutes after Ronald Reagan was sworn in as the new president.

In court papers filed Tuesday night without any announcement, the Justice Department argued that the agreement to release the hostages, known as the Algiers Accords, precluded lawsuits against Iran.

Similar lawsuit dismissed in 2000

A similar lawsuit brought by the Iranian hostages was dismissed in 2000 after the government successfully argued it was banned by the Algiers Accords. The hostages argue that legislation passed by Congress last year and signed into law by President George W. Bush gives them the right to bring private lawsuits.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30350430/

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This is another shitty article from AP.

The original headline said "Obama wants Iran Hostages Suit tossed".

But, this raises more questions, other than the obvious propaganda. This is the first I've ever heard of a no lawsuit agreement, or the "Algiers Accord". Who the fuck negotiated it?

First of all, if such an agreement exists, Obama is blameless. It was not in Carter's interests to negotiate it. Was Reagan negotiating with Iran before he was sworn in, a'la, October Surprise?

Inquiring fucking minds want answers.

Even after Iran Contra was over, Cheney and Co. were doing business with Iran in the 1990s. The Repubs have nothing but respect for the money of the nation they call part of the Axis of Evil.

Don't forget, Bush issued an order that these tortured U.S. servicemen couldn't collect damages from Iraq even after they'd been awarded by the courts.

U.S. Opposes Money for Troops Jailed in Iraq
Published on Monday, November 10, 2003 by the New York Times

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 — The Bush administration is seeking to block a group of American troops who were tortured in Iraqi prisons during the Persian Gulf war in 1991 from collecting any of the hundreds of millions of dollars in frozen Iraqi assets they won last summer in a federal court ruling against the government of Saddam Hussein.

In a court challenge that the administration is winning so far but is not eager to publicize, administration lawyers have argued that Iraqi assets frozen in bank accounts in the United States are needed for Iraqi reconstruction and that the judgment won by the 17 former American prisoners should be overturned.

If the administration succeeds, the former prisoners would be deprived of the money they won and, they say, of the validation of a judge's ruling that documented their accounts of torture by the Iraqis — including beatings, burnings, starvation, mock executions and repeated threats of castration and dismemberment.

"I don't want to say that I feel betrayed, because I still believe in my country," said Lt. Col. Dale Storr, whose Air Force A-10 fighter jet was shot down by Iraqi fire in February 1991.

More:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1110-06.htm


See also:

SPOKANE — Dale Storr spent 33 days as a prisoner of war in Iraq after his A-10 ... Iraq, Storr, 41, could once again be called to duty by a president named Bush. ... For the next month, he endured torture, daily interrogation and an ... and allied POWs and their families in a lawsuit seeking hundreds of millions of ...
www.aiipowmia.com/inter23/in021803pilot.html


THE STRUGGLE FOR IRAQ: P.O.W.'S; U.S. Moves to Block Money For ...
Nov 10, 2003 ... The Bush administration is seeking to block a group of American troops who ... Dale Storr, whose Air Force A-10 fighter jet was shot down by Iraqi ... The Iraqi government made no effort to respond to the lawsuit. ... against Iraq would discourage other governments from torturing American troops. ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/10/world/the-struggle-for-iraq-pow-s-us-moves-to-block-money-for-troops-held-in-91-war.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all


CNN.com - Transcripts
Apr 26, 2003 ... DALE STORR, FORMER GULF WAR POW: Well, my treatment as a ... It's our view that something should have been done to accommodate the lawsuit that we had filed and the ... by the Bush administration, what legal recourse do you have, Mr. Fennell? ... not only at the time of the torture, but ever since. ...
www.transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0304/26/cst.16.html

Timeline - Lawsuit
President Reagan and President-elect Bush were subpoenaed to testify as defense ... Dale Storr was imprisoned. In 2002 17 former US prisoners including Storr won a suit for $959 million of frozen Iraqi assets for their documented torture. ... Links: Iraq, USA, Lawsuit Click to see the source(s) for this event ...
http://www.timelinesdb.com/listevents.php?subjid=536&title=Lawsuit

A conclusion to that sorry episode which brought us Reagan. http://www.parstimes.com/history/algiers_accords.pdf