The Iranian judiciary announced on Monday that a shipment of American oil had been confiscated and sold to benefit patients with "cutaneous butterfly" disease who had been deprived of vital medicines as a result of US sanctions.
The head of Division 55 of the Iranian Court of International Affairs announced the implementation of a court ruling to confiscate an American oil tanker and sell its oil cargo, as part of a lawsuit filed by 771 patients with E.P. disease against the US government, accusing them of being deprived of vital medicines as a result of illegal sanctions. The proceeds from the sale were transferred to the judiciary’s account in preparation for distributing them to the affected patients.
The head of the division explained that the court, after extensive inquiries from internal and external sources, reached conclusive evidence proving the direct and indirect involvement of the US government in preventing access to medicines for Iranian patients, noting that the US Treasury Department issued indirect directives that led pharmaceutical companies to refrain from supplying medicines to Iran, for fear of sanctions, which constituted a clear violation of their basic right to health care.
According to the ruling, the tanker was stopped in the waters of the Gulf in 2023, and its oil cargo, which was proven to be owned by the US government, was unloaded and sold according to legal procedures, with the proceeds to be distributed to the plaintiff patients, at a rate of 2 billion tomans per patient, in a step that the judge described as "the first steps to redress the damage," stressing that the legal procedures will continue to compensate thalassemia patients and other categories of those affected by the sanctions.
The session was attended by representatives of the “B” Charity Foundation for Patients, whose director gave testimony about the suffering of “EB” patients from a shortage of special medical bandages, holding the US government responsible for worsening their situation, considering that the confiscation represents a message that “Iran does not accept threatening its patients,” while the judge confirmed the continuation of the legal series against US assets to support those affected by the economic blockade, stressing that the Iranian judiciary is proceeding with taking similar measures in favor of all patients who have filed lawsuits.
