DUBAI, United Arab Emirates—A U.S. federal judge has awarded a Washington Post journalist and his family nearly $180 million in their lawsuit against Iran over his 544 days in captivity and torture while being held on internationally criticized espionage charges.
U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon in Washington entered the judgment late Friday in Rezaian’s case. He described how authorities in Iran denied the journalist sleep, medical care, and abused him during his imprisonment.
“Iran seized Jason, threatened to kill Jason, and did so with the goal of compelling the United States to free Iranian prisoners as a condition of Jason’s release,” Leon said in his ruling.
The judge later added: “Holding a man hostage and torturing him to gain leverage in negotiations with the United States is outrageous, deserving of punishment and surely in need of deterrence.”
Iran never responded to the lawsuit despite it being handed over to the government by the Swiss Embassy in Tehran, which oversees U.S. interests in the country. Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday.
Rezaian and his lawyers did not respond to a request for comment. Martin Baron, the executive editor of the Post, said in a statement that Rezaian’s treatment by Iran was “horrifying.”
“We’ve seen our role as helping the Rezaians through their recovery,” Baron said. “Our satisfaction comes from seeing them enjoy their freedom and a peaceful life.”
Rezaian’s case, which began with his 2014 gunpoint arrest alongside his wife Yeganeh Salehi, showed how the Islamic Republic can grab those with Western ties to use in negotiations. It’s a practice recounted by human rights groups, U.N. investigators and the families of those detained.
Despite being an accredited journalist for the Post with permission to live and work in Iran, Rezaian was taken to Tehran’s Evin prison and later convicted in a closed trial before a Revolutionary Court on still-unexplained espionage charges.
It remains unclear how and if the money will be paid. It could come from the United States Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund. The fund has distributed funds to those held and affected by Iran’s 1979 student takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and subsequent hostage crisis. Rezaian named Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, this year designated as a terrorist organization by the Trump administration, as a defendant in the case.
The order in the case filed by Jason Rezaian came comes a week after Iran’s Nov. 15 gasoline price hike. The price hike sparked demonstrations that rapidly turned violent, seeing gas stations, banks, and stores burned to the ground.
Amnesty International said it believes the unrest and the crackdown killed at least 106 people. Iran disputes that figure without offering its own. A U.N. office earlier said it feared the unrest may have killed “a significant number of people.”
Starting Nov. 16, Iran shut down the internet across the country, limiting communications with the outside world. That made determining the scale and longevity of the protests incredibly difficult.
The U.S. Treasury on Friday sanctioned Iranian minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi over the internet shutdown.
Since Thursday, that outage began to slightly lift. By Saturday morning, internet connectivity stood below 20 percent of normal levels, according to the monitoring group NetBlocks. By Saturday afternoon, however, connectivity suddenly spiked to above 60 percent and was climbing as individuals in Iran began saying they could access the internet for the first time in a week.
“Internet access is being restored in #Iran after a weeklong internet shutdown amid widespread protests,” NetBlocks said on Twitter.
Meanwhile Saturday, the semiofficial Fars news agency reported that Iranian intelligence officials claimed the killing of a leader of violent protesters in Iran’s western Kermanshah province. Iran’s top prosecutor, Mohammad Javad Montazeri, meanwhile visited a major prison in Tehran. He promised that the fate of some of those arrested amid the protests would be decided soon, the state-run IRNA news agency reported.
Iran’s first Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri also issued a warning to regional countries over the unrest.
“If a clue is found that they have meddled in Iran’s domestic affairs to create unrest, they will not see another day without trouble in this region,” he warned. “Iran is not a country you can play such games with.”
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