The Iranian judiciary demanded the US administration to pay compensation of about $50 billion for assassinating top Iranian military officer Qassem Soleimani in early 2020 in Iraq.
The ruling was issued three weeks before the fourth anniversary of the drone attack that killed Soleimani, along with Iraqi commander Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes, near Baghdad Airport on January 3, 2020, in a strike ordered by former President Donald Trump.
Back then, Trump confirmed that Washington succeeded in killing a "monster" who was planning a big attack" on US diplomats and military personnel.
Before his assassination, the chief of Iran's elite military Quds Force warned Trump not to take military action against Iran, saying if Washington started a war, Tehran would be the one to end it.
"We are near you, where you can't even imagine... Come. We are ready. If you begin the war, we will end the war," Soleimani said.
In response to the assassination, Tehran targeted two US bases in Iraq and repeated its demand for the withdrawal of US forces from the neighboring country.
The judiciary's Mizan agency reported that after 3,318 complaints made by citizens across the country, the 55th branch of the Legal Court for International Relations in Tehran ruled that the US administration and government officials should pay compensation and a fine for the damages amounting to $49.77 billion, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
According to the website, the court convicted 42 US individuals and entities, including Trump and officials in his administration.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) did not comment on the judicial announcement. The Iranian judiciary previously issued an arrest warrant for Trump.
Last February, the commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force, Amir-Ali Hajizadeh, said that plans to assassinate Trump and his Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, in retaliation for Soleimani "remain a primary goal" for his forces.
Earlier this year, the Biden administration extended protection to Pompeo and his top Iran aide Brian Hook, adding that the threats to the former officials remain "serious and credible."
Meanwhile, Tehran accused Washington of "complicity in the crimes" of Israel in its war against the Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip.
In turn, the US said Iran, which supports Hamas, is behind the attacks launched by its affiliated groups on US forces in Iraq and Syria.
Soleimani died when he was sixty-two years old after a long career during which he rose through the IRGC ranks until he reached the leadership of the Quds Force in the late nineties.
He is credited with significantly expanding Iranian intelligence and military operations in the Middle East.
In late October, an Iranian court ordered the US government to pay $420 million in compensation to victims of an abortive 1980 operation to free hostages held at the US Embassy.
Shortly after the 1979 Iranian revolution toppled the Western-backed Shah, Iranian students stormed the embassy in Tehran and took more than 50 US hostages for 444 days.
The students called for the extradition of the deposed Shah, who was receiving medical care in the United States.
In April 1980, Washington attempted to free the hostages in the top-secret Operation Eagle Claw, which ended in disaster after running into sandstorms and mechanical problems.
Five months after the hostage crisis, Washington severed diplomatic relations and imposed an embargo on Tehran.
In 2016, the US Supreme Court ordered that Iranian assets frozen in the United States should be paid to victims of attacks that Washington blamed on Tehran, including the 1983 bombing of a Marine barracks in Beirut and a 1996 blast in Saudi Arabia.
