WASHINGTON—A U.S. District Court judge ordered Iran on Wednesday to pay $247 million in damages to the family of an American student killed in the 1995 bombing of an Israeli bus.

Vowing to strike a blow against "state-sponsored terrorism," Judge Royce Lamberth told the court, "We cannot be stronger in condemning this action. It has no place in civilized society."

The judge concluded from expert testimony that the Iranian government funded world-wide terrorism in the amount of $75 million each year and that some of that money was provided directly to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Lamberth said Iran was "brazen" enough in "its sponsorship of terrorist activities" to carry a line item in its national budget for this purpose.

He said as a deterrent to Tehran and other governments, he was awarding punitive damages three times the amount of Iran's "annual expenditure for terrorist activities."

"While the death of any young person is tragic, a killing under these circumstances extends to the very limits of any human being's capacity to inflict pain and suffering upon another," Lamberth said.

Tehran did not respond to the suit, which named as defendants the Iranian government, its top leaders, the Iranian Ministry of Information and Security and other Iranian officials.

Iran Sentences City Officials to Jail, Flogging, Reuter, March 11

Tehran—An Iranian court has sentenced five Tehran city officials to jail terms of up to seven years and up to 74 lashes each on corruption charges, a newspaper said on Wednesday.

The newspaper added that Kamal Aziminia, a top aide of Tehran's mayor, had been sentenced to 322 lashes in addition to a previously reported jail term of 25 years on corruption charges.

Aziminia headed the municipality's zoning commission which ruled on how city land could be used and issued permits for high-rise buildings.

The daily Kayhan said the court also convicted four businessmen of bribery and immorality, jailing three of them for up to three years.

The convicted businessmen, who were also ordered to pay fines of up to 28.4 billion rials ($9.5 million), were developers involved in lucrative high-rise constructions.

The officials were the latest group of aides to Mayor Gholamhossein Karbaschi, a close ally of Iran's President Mohammad Khatami, to be convicted.

During last May's presidential election, the mayor actively campaigned for Khatami who defeated the main conservative candidate, parliamentary speaker Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri.

 
A Regime Faction Planned To Beat Up Minister, Agence France Presse, March 11

Salam newspaper said a number of hardliners tried to disrupt Minister of Guidance Ataollah Mohajerani's speech at a mosque in Qom on Tuesday night, and they later "planned to beat him up," only to be prevented by the public.

Last week fundamentalists attacked pro-Khatami students holding a rally to protest the rejection of their candidate for Friday's legislative by-election.

On Monday, conservative students staged a counter-demonstration, demanding the impeachment of Interior Minister Abdollah Nuri for allowing public protests against the regime.
 

"Only A Warning!", BBC, March 9

Supporters of a senior Iranian dissident cleric, Ayatollah Hussain Ali Montazeri, have demonstrated in his home town to protest against his house arrest. Ayatollah Montazeri has been under house arrest since last November when he publicly challenged the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei….

One of his followers told newspapers that the demonstration was kept peaceful only to give a warning to the authorities. If our demands are ignored, he warned, protests would continue….

 
Bankrupt Mullahs Search for More Foreign Money, BBC, March 11

An Iranian newspaper on Wednesday called on the government to give the country a new economic direction with the help of foreign investment, the Iranian news agency IRNA reported….

The economic problems of the country had long been recognized and many attempts made to resolve them, but with little impact….
 

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