Iran court orders US to pay $12.6bn to thalassemia patients
An Iranian court has ruled US must pay for damages inflicted on thalassemia patients after it deprived them of access to vital medicine as a result of sanctions following its withdrawal from JCPOA in 2018.
The 55th branch of the court dealing with international affairs in Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Judicial Complex issued a ruling on Wednesday after 438 thalassemia patients filed a lawsuit against 17 natural and legal persons of the US administration involved in imposing medicine-related sanctions on the Islamic Republic, Press TV reported.
The court’s verdict sentenced the US government and officials to pay material, moral and punitive damages amounting to $12.615 billion to the plaintiffs.
“Since the onset of secondary sanctions and the imposition of pharmaceutical sanctions, in the absence of original and high-quality drugs, they (the thalassemia patients) were inevitably supplied with low-quality medicines and suffered severe complications, and consequently faced a lot of treatment costs,” the court said.
“In fact, the lack of the required medicines for thalassemia patients led to an increase in these patients’ drug allergy and exacerbation of pain and suffering caused by the use of other drugs.”
The verdict also pointed to the destructive effects of drugs, including physiological and psychological suffering and damages that have been inflicted on the patients themselves and their relatives, in a way that has caused limitations in the patient's social relations, such as attending school, and limitations in the job opportunities that they could have obtained.
“The unilateral sanctions of the United States, which have indiscriminately subjected the population ‘in need of protection’ to loss of life, including deprivation of the right to life or physical harm, are a clear example of criminal acts against the civilian population, which also institute civil liability for them,” the court underlined.
