US seizes $7mn of Iran assets in latest ‘highway robbery’

The US regime says it has seized $7 million in Iranian assets for what it called “victims of terrorism”, in the latest hostile move by outgoing President Donald Trump.

According to Press TV, in a statement, the US Justice Department said the money was the US share of a civil forfeiture that targeted alleged attempts to violate sanctions on Iran with transfers of about $1 billion of Iranian-owned funds to accounts around the world.

Under US pressure, billions of dollars of Iran’s oil money and other funds are held up in several countries. The assets have been subject to a witch hunt by the Americans who have used Washington’s animosity toward the Islamic Republic to easily win lawsuits against the country in US courts.

Last October, reports said a US court had ordered Iran to pay more than $1.4 billion in “punitive and compensatory damages” to the family of a FBI agent who allegedly disappeared during a visit to an Iranian island in March 2007.

Iran has strongly denounced US seizures of its frozen assets in the United States as highway robbery and hauled the United States before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague.

The new seizure came as the US Treasury Department imposed illegal sanctions on several companies in connection with Iran's steel industry in a bid to dry up the resource-rich country’s sources of revenue.

SS