Michigan Man Sues U.S. For Terrorism Fund Money

Did you know that the United States has a Department of Justice's United States Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund?  I did not know that and I am wondering why we have one.

Do you know what this Department of Justice's United States Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund does with taxpayer money?  It is a taxpayer fund in which we pay people who have been victims of terrorism.

The Detroit Free Press is reporting on a former Marine from Flint who in 2011 decided to vacation in the beautiful and peaceful country of Iran to visit his grandmother and other relatives when the Iranian government took him prisoner.  I did not see that one coming did you?

The former Marine was born in the U.S. to immigrants from Iran who fled after the 1979 Islamic revolution. HIs father eventually became a professor at Mott Community College in Flint.

The former Marine has now filed suit against the U.S. because he has not received the $20 million our government said he was eligible to receive from us taxpayers.

According to the lawsuit, the fund for victims of terrorism told him approximately two years ago that he was eligible to receive $20 million stemming from his time in an Iranian prison for more than four years from 2011 to 2016.

The man said that he was sentenced to death after being accused of being a spy.  He was thankfully eventually released in January 2016 as part of a prisoner exchange with the U.S. tied to the Iranian nuclear deal.

We are told that the fund notified him last December that he was authorized to get an initial payment of his $20 million in compensation worth $890,100, but the money never came.

His lead attorney said in a statement:

It is an utter disgrace that the United States Department of Justice has effectively blocked payment to Amir Hekmati, a former Marine, who was brutally tortured and falsely imprisoned in Iran for nearly five years…Sgt. Hekmati served his country bravely in combat, and he endured years of unimaginable physical and emotional anguish in the worst of Iranian prisons. ...  Now, trying simply to get on with his life back home, he’s being victimized all over again, this time by his own country.

According to Gilbert our government through this fund has paid out billions of dollars to approximately 5,000 victims.

My first thought when I learned of this issue was that I was really happy that this man was alive and released.

My second thought was; what was he doing as an American and a former solider visiting relatives in a terrorist country like Iran in this day in age.

My third thought was; really we have a fund that pays victims of terrorism.

My fourth thought was; I have been a victim of Democrat/Liberal/Socialist policies for years, where is the fund I can go to and get my millions of taxpayer money.