Zarif: Iranian, Iraqi Courts Competent to Rule in Gen. Soleimani Assassination Case
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The case of assassination of top Iranian commander Lt. General Qassem Soleimani and his companions in Baghdad is only within the competence of tribunals in Iran and Iraq, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said.
“The venue for legal action on the assassination of Martyr Soleimani and his entourage is the judicial courts of Iran and Iraq,” Zarif said in a meeting of organizers of a conference on the legal and international lawsuits relating to the Sacred Defense –a war that former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein launched on Iran in the 1980s.
Zarif also highlighted the Iranian Foreign Ministry’s efforts that resulted in the UN special rapporteur’s condemnation of the American assassination of General Soleimani.
In July 2020, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Agnes Callamard, said in a report that the US drone strike in Iraq that killed Lt. General Soleimani constituted a violation of international law.
The US assassinated General Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), along with Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy head of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) or Hashd al-Shaabi, and their companions by targeting their vehicles outside Baghdad International Airport on January 3, 2020.
The act of terror was carried out under the direction of US President Donald Trump, with the Pentagon taking responsibility for the strike.