Washington to award former embassy detainees in Iran
The US government will award millions of dollars to the Americans who were taken into custody at the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979.
Each of the 53 detainees or their estates will receive up to $4.4 million, according to a $1.1 trillion spending bill passed last week by the US Congress.
The law authorizes payments of up to $10,000 per day of captivity for each of the detainees, 37 of whom are still alive.
Initial payments are to be disbursed within one year, according to a formula that will be overseen by a special master appointed by the US Justice Department.
The agreement that freed the detainees in January 1981 barred them from collecting restitution from the Iranian government.
There were originally 66 Americans held at the US embassy. Thirteen were released in November 1979, and one was released in July 1980 because of ill health. Fifty-two Americans were held for the full 444 days.
In November 1979 and in less than a year after the victory of the Islamic Revolution that toppled a US-backed monarchy, Iranian university students seized the US Embassy in Tehran.
The students believed the US mission had turned into a center of spying aimed at overthrowing the Islamic establishment in Iran following the Islamic Revolution earlier that year.
Documents found at the compound later confirmed claims by Iranian students that Washington was using its embassy in Tehran to plot against the new Islamic establishment of Iran.
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