26 US officials are sanctioned by Iran for human rights violations

The Iranian Parliament (Majlis) has imposed sanctions on 26 US officials, including former defense and intelligence chiefs, for their involvement in the killing of civilians and the torture of suspects in US-run prisons, presstv.ir informs.

MP Kazem Jalali, the spokesman of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said on Tuesday that the committee has drawn up a list of US officials to be sanctioned for human rights violations.

The officials on the list include commander of US forces in Iraq Raymond Odierno, USS Vincennes Captain Will Rogers III, former FBI chief Thomas J. Pickard, and the former commander of the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Geoffrey D. Miller, Jalali said.

Current Guantanamo commander Rear Admiral Jeffery Harbeson, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and another US military official will also be sanctioned by Tehran, the Iranian MP added.

Miller, who commanded the US prison at Guantanamo Bay between 2002 and 2007, is charged with torture of inmates, while Harbeson is charged in connection with human rights violations at the detention center since 2010.

Rogers will have sanctions imposed on him over the killing of 290 Iranian civilians on board Iran Air Flight 655, which was shot down by the USS Vincennes on July 3, 1988. The other officials also have their crimes and Iranian media tell about them in details.

According to the source, Amnesty International censured the US for its indefinite detentions of suspects in Afghanistan and at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.

In October 2010, the United Nations Human Rights Council issued a report in which it expressed serious concern about human rights violations in the United States.


(2011-5-25/Times.am)