Iran's Accountability

"Our response is that they [Tehran] were accorded every procedural right to which they're entitled and they chose to ignore the proceedings. And so in the circumstances we don't see any reason why they should be permitted now to come back and say they want to participate and they want to object."
Lawyer John Adair, representing terror victims, Canada

The Islamic Republic of Iran simply sneered and preferred to ignore Canada's 2012 Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act which enabled people whom terrorist acts harmed to seek financial restitution for the agony they had undergone as victims. With the enactment of that legislation, which Canada had brought into law following similar legislation in the United States, people who had suffered as a result of terrorism which Iran was seen to be responsible for, could claim justice.

Victims of attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah, Islamist terrorist groups whom the Republic of Iran is known to fund and incite and instruct, were now free to take court action against the Islamic Republic on the basis of their victimhood and Iran's responsibility in it. Victims have taken court action in Ontario, British Columbia and Nova Scotia to be awarded financial compensation from Iranian investments, properties or bank accounts held in Canada.

Canadian courts awarded those victims all of Iran's non-diplomatic assets held in Canada, inclusive of the contents of 14 bank accounts valued at over $2.6-million, along with properties owned by Iran in Toronto and Ottawa. The prospect now of losing those holdings has inspired Iran to finally respond where they had not seen the need previously and a court date has been set to hear Iran's motions arguing it had not been properly served notice of the civil suits, claiming the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act invalid.

The dissolved assets were meant to be shared among the victims in an arrangement worked out by their respective lawyers. Iran had confined itself to condemning the court action within its interior state-controlled media, doing nothing to defend itself in court. The lawyer for several of the victims stated "I certainly have every confidence that our government passed valid legislation and knew precisely what it was doing."

One case brought against Iran's Ministry of Information and Security by a few Americans included Edward Tracey, abducted, tortured and held captive by Hezbollah in Lebanon for close to five years who won a judgement against Iran in a U.S. court but brought his case to Canada in hopes of collecting what he is owed. There were enough cases pursued in American courts by victims of Iran's terrorist cadres that Iranian assets were soon depleted in that country.

A Vancouver dentist who had volunteered at a Jerusalem dental clinic for underprivileged children was the victim of a 1997 Hamas suicide bombing in which she was severely injured. She too awaits restitution for her pain and suffering, but more than that, is determined to be part of a group of people who were victimized and who fought back, to see the country that had inspired the action that impacted on them pay the consequences of their actions.

Lyle Stafford for National Post   A 43-year-old single mother, Dr. Sherri Wise was volunteering at a Jerusalem dental clinic for underprivileged children when three Hamas terrorists detonated suicide bombs at a busy Jerusalem pedestrian mall. 

 

Responding to Iran's decision to fight back against the terror charges brought against it by victims in Ontario Superior Court, Foreign Minister John Baird had this to say: "To do this, they will benefit from the legal system of an open and democratic country like Canada while at the same time suppressing human rights defenders, jailing lawyers and demonstrating virtually no respect for the rule of law at home."