NEW YORK (Agencies)
U.S. prosecutors filed a civil lawsuit to seize control of a New York City skyscraper they say is owned by companies illegally funneling money to the Iranian government, according to Friday news reports.
The suit seeks to revoke the Alavi Foundation and the Assa Corporation's ownership of a 36-storey building at 650 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. The original lawsuit filed in December only sought Assa Corp's building share.
" No action has been taken against any tenants or occupants of those properties " US Attorney\\\'s Office spokeswoman Yusill Scribner Prosecutors said both companies were sending money to Bank Melli, owned by the Iranian government. The U.S. Treasury has designated the bank as a weapons proliferators and banned U.S. citizens from dealing with it.
Prosecutors said they also intended to seize "all other assets" of the two entities, including bank accounts and real estate in New York, Maryland, Virginia, Texas, and California.
The amended civil action is against the owners of the properties and not people who use the buildings, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said.
"No action has been taken against any tenants or occupants of those properties," said spokeswoman Yusill Scribner. "There are no allegations of any wrongdoing on the part of any of these tenants or occupants."
Prosecutors say Iran's United Nations ambassador has controlled the Alavi Foundation since 1991.
The filing was likely to further Washington's already fraught ties with Tehran, which it accuses of funding terror groups and of seeking to produce a nuclear bomb under cover of its suspect civilian nuclear program.
President Barack Obama renewed long-standing U.S. economic sanctions against Iran for another year on Thursday, telling Congress that "our relations with Iran have not yet returned to normal."
Calls to the Alavi Foundation and the Iranian mission to the United Nations were not immediately returned. |
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Very rare step The move to seize the Shiite Muslim places of worship, a very rare step for U.S. law enforcement due to freedom of religion rights enshrined in the constitution, comes as U.S. Muslims fear a backlash following last week's shootings at Fort Hood, Texas, allegedly by a Muslim U.S. Army psychiatrist.
The seized Islamic centers -- the Islamic Institute of New York in the city's Queens borough, the Islamic Education Center of Houston, Texas, the Islamic Education Center in Rockville, Maryland and the Qoba Foundation in Carmichael, California -- house mosques and schools.
On its website, the foundation says it is "devoted to the promotion and support of Islamic culture and Persian language, literature and civilization" and has done so for over 30 years "by financially supporting charitable and philanthropic causes."
The group's former president, Farhsid Jahedi, remains under investigation for alleged obstruction of justice in a pending case. He was arrested last year.
The Alavi Foundation was founded as a successor to the Pahlavi Foundation, a non-profit organization the late shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi had used to pursue Iran's charitable interests in the United States. |
