Gen. Soleimani assassination apologist awarded $113 million in stolen Iranian assets

A US court awarded a so-called American journalist, who is infamous for his advocacy of subversion across the world and sympathy for Washington’s assassination of Iran’s top anti-terror general, $113 million in stolen Iranian assets as alleged compensation for his imprisonment in the Islamic Republic.

News ID: 5686

Date: 02 January 2025 - 22:22

TABNAK, Jan 02: Greyzone, an independent news website, carried the report on Friday, saying US District Senior Judge Richard J. Leon had found Shane Bauer, his then girlfriend, now ex-wife, Sarah Shourd, and their friend, Joshua Fattal, entitled to receiving a the whopping fee, which has been misappropriated by the United States as part of Washington’s illegal sanctions against Tehran.

The trio was arrested by Iranian servicemen near Iran’s border with Iraq’s Kurdistan Region in 2009 after trespassing upon Iranian territory.

In 2011, an Iranian court sentenced Bauer and Fattal to a total of eight years in prison each after they were convicted of illegally crossing the country’s border and spying for the United States. The two each served a total of two years, while Shourd was granted a compassionate release from Iranian prison after 13 months of detention.

Throughout his confinement, Bauer alleges having suffered “torture” at the hands of his jailers, while he himself contradicts his own accounts by saying he would taunt guards to hit him.

His, their lawyer’s, and the judge’s assertion of their entitlement to the sum comes while Bauer and his ex-wife were once staunch critics of the American sanctions, claiming that the money stolen as a result of the bans could be used towards benefiting Iranians, including by enabling purchase of medicine for patients.

In his verdict, the judge claimed that “Iran is liable for false imprisonment,” and “for intentional infliction of severe emotional distress as to all plaintiffs.”

Bauer has, meanwhile, amassed considerable notoriety for supporting overthrow of democratically-elected governments across the world, including in Iran, Syria, and Nicaragua.

He has also tried to justify the US’s assassination of Iran’s and the region’s most prominent anti-terror commander, Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani.

The purported journalist further tows a history of attacking anti-war media figures and independent outlets such as Grayzone.

The website described his “journalistic career” as “shrouded in suspicion.”

According to Grayzone, “Critics accuse Bauer of promoting US interventionism, especially regarding Syria. His 2019 reports for Mother Jones supported Kurdish claims of US military presence to exploit Syrian oil resources.”