Iran lawmakers vote for motion to impose sanctions on 26 US officials for involvement in killing of civilians
Iranian lawmakers have voted for a single-urgency motion to impose sanctions on 26 US officials for their involvement in the killing of civilians and the torture of inmates in US-run prisons.
The legislators passed the motion on Sunday to try in absentia 26 US officials over human rights violations, IRNA reported.
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. Current Guantanamo commander Rear Admiral Jeffery Harbeson and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld were also sanctioned by the Islamic Republic.
Pickard is charged with human rights violations over his involvement in the siege of the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, in 1993, and the death of over 80 followers of the cult. He is also accused of human rights violations during his tenure as the CIA station chief in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2003.
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 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.
Rumsfeld, who was US secretary of defense from 1975 to 1977 and from 2001 to 2006, is also on the list for the killing of thousands of civilians in the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He is also charged in connection with human rights violations and torture at two notorious US prisons, Abu Ghraib in Iraq and Bagram in Afghanistan.
Paul Bremer, the US administrator in Iraq from May 2003 to June 2004, and General Tommy Franks, who led the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, are also on the list of US officials that the Iranian parliament imposed sanctions on.
