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Phantom Blooper
09-10-03, 05:26 AM
Damages Awarded In Beirut Bombing (Washington Post)

By Carol D. Leonnig Page A04, Sep 9, 2003
A federal judge ruled yesterday that the government of Iran sponsored the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and awarded $123 million to 29 ...



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Damages Awarded in Beirut Embassy Bombing - Washington Post
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Damages Awarded In Beirut Bombing


Judge Says Iran Backed '83 Attack

By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer


Tuesday, September 9, 2003; Page A04


A federal judge ruled yesterday that the government of Iran sponsored the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and awarded $123 million to 29 American victims and family members of some of those killed in the attack.

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates concluded that Iran was ultimately responsible for the radical Islamic group Hezbollah detonating a car loaded with explosives inside the embassy entrance on April 18, 1983. It was the first large-scale attack on an American embassy anywhere in the world and was considered a watershed act that ushered in two decades of terrorist attacks on U.S. targets overseas and at home.

The explosion killed 63 people, 17 of them Americans, injured another 100, and flattened seven embassy floors. It was followed -- and overshadowed -- by the Oct. 23, 1983, terrorist bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 servicemen and led then-President Ronald Reagan to withdraw U.S. troops from Lebanon.

Bates's decision yesterday covers only a portion of a large lawsuit, filed by 90 victims of the embassy bombing and family members of those injured and killed. Bates awarded $750,000 to $10 million each to 29 representatives of the larger group.

The group included Anne Dammarell, 65, of Washington, a development worker burned and pinned by an air conditioning unit in the embassy cafeteria. Dammarell was awarded $6.7 million. It also included Yvonne Ames, the wife of Robert Clayton Ames, a CIA analyst killed in the explosion, and their six grown children, who were collectively awarded $38.2 million.

The case is one of dozens of lawsuits filed in recent years under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which gives U.S. victims of terrorist attacks the right to sue foreign states that sponsor terrorist attacks and seek compensation in U.S. courts for their injuries and losses.

Departing from earlier cases, Bates ruled that plaintiffs were not entitled to punitive damages in light of a federal appellate decision this summer that made the agencies of governments immune from paying such damages.


© 2003 The Washington Post Company


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