US Supreme Court to rule on seizure of Iranian antiquities
The United States Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday, July 26, to rule on a request by the family of victims of a 1997 Jerusalem bombing to enforce a $71 million judgment against Iran from a Chicago court.
According to Reuters, if the Supreme Court agrees with the plaintiffs' request, a collection of Iranian antiquities housed in two Chicago museums will be seized in their favor.
Supreme Court justices are scheduled to hear the plaintiffs' appeal of the Chicago Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling in favor of Iran.
The old lawsuit filed in Chicago court concerns a 1997 attack in Jerusalem in which three Hamas members carried out a suicide bombing that killed five people and injured eight Americans.
These individuals, along with their relatives, had sued Iran in a US court for its possible role in the attack and were able to obtain an order for compensation from Iran in the amount of $71.5 million.
To achieve their compensation, the plaintiffs have targeted three collections of Iranian antiquities, including prehistoric pottery, jewelry, and ancient inscriptions in Elamite script, which are held by the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago and the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago.
The two museums say the works belong to them, but the plaintiffs have argued that Iran owns them. A Chicago court in April 2014 rejected the plaintiffs' request to turn over the works and sell them to raise compensation.
Most of these inscriptions were loaned to the Chicago Oriental Institute in the 1930s under a long-term contract signed with the then Iranian government.
Robert Gettleman, the judge in the Chicago court case, referred to the contract with the then Iranian government and said that these objects were loaned by Iran for academic and research purposes and since they were not loaned for commercial purposes, they cannot be confiscated.
Iran has repeatedly requested the return of these artifacts in the past. The University of Chicago has returned more than 30,000 ancient objects to Iran over the years.
Matt Stolper, who is in charge of the preservation of the objects in Chicago, told The Associated Press that all of them will be returned to Iran once the rest of the items are registered.
The US Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments from the parties in its new session, which begins in October.
The US Supreme Court ruling will likely affect the outcome of a similar case brought by four different groups representing plaintiffs injured in other Iranian-backed attacks.
These plaintiffs are seeking to enforce the ruling of the regular courts, which have agreed to pay them $17.6 million from the assets of the National Bank of Iran.
In a similar case decided last year, the Supreme Court ruled to freeze $2 billion in Iranian assets that should be paid to the families of Americans killed in the 1983 Beirut bombing by the Lebanese group Hezbollah and other attacks that Iran has been accused of supporting.
Source: Radio Farda
