US judge orders Iran pay $1.45 billion to family of ex-FBI agent presumed dead
Iran has been ordered to pay Robert Levinson's family $1.35 billion in punitive damages and $107 million in compensatory damages.
A federal judge in Washington has ruled that Iran must pay $1.45 billion in damages to the family of a retired FBI agent who vanished 13 years ago in Iran.
Robert Levinson, the longest held hostage in American history, disappeared on Iran’s Kish Island in March 2007 in what the US government initially claimed was a private business trip. In 2013, The Associated Press revealed that CIA analysts had recruited Levinson and sent him on a mission inside Iran.
Unknown captors sent the family proof-of-life videos and photos in 2010 and 2011, showing a haggard Levinson wearing a Guantanamo Bay-like orange jumpsuit. Last year, the US State Department offered a reward of up to $20 million for information on the whereabouts of the father of seven.
In March, Levinson’s family said the US government had confirmed his death in Iranian custody. It’s unclear how or when he died, the family said, only that it was at some point before the coronavirus outbreak in Iran.
