TEHRAN Former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on Friday criticized the Judiciary for not putting into effect a parliamentary bill which allows Iranian victims of U.S. interference to "sue the United States for damages."

Last November, Iranian Parliament (Majlis) voted unanimously to allow courts to impose punitive damages on the United States for "terrorist" acts. The move came after the U.S. government agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in damages to victims of what Washington calls Iranian "state-sponsored terrorism".

"I am surprised that why Iran is staying out and does nothing vis-a-vis the U.S. baseless allegations? The Americans routinely form tribunals against Iran under unfounded pretexts to pickpocket millions of dollars from the latter's (frozen) assets," Rafsanjani told thousands of worshippers attending the weekly Muslim Friday prayers at the compounds of Tehran University.

In a latest case, a U.S. federal judge has ordered Iran to pay the damages to 70-year-old university professor Thomas Sutherland, in the seventh such case against Iran.

"Why don't we complain? why the parliamentary legislation is not put into effect?" Rafsanjani said.

"We should carry out a tit for tat. retaliation is a manifestation of patience and resistance," he added.

he said the families of the 290 people killed after the shooting down of an Iranian airliner over the Persian Gulf by a U.S. cruiser 13 years ago and the families of the four Iranian diplomats kidnapped in Lebanon 19 years ago should "file lawsuit against the United States."

"The Airbus plane carrying some 300 passengers was downed by a U.S. cruiser. Four Iranians were captured in Lebanon and the Iranian assets were frozen in U.S. banks," he said.

"There are many cases on whose basis we may lodge complaint against the United States," Rafsanjani said.

"I ask the Judiciary and those involved in the cases to say why they have not yet taken any action," said the former president.

Washington says the ship's crew mistook the airliner for an attacking Iranian fighter plane and has paid compensation to the victims' families, but Tehran claimed the attack was deliberate.

The four Iranians were kidnapped -- following Israel's invasion of Lebanon in June 1982 -- by the Lebanese forces, a Christian militia, whose head Samir Geagea has sat in a Lebanese prison since 1994.

Tehran and Washington severed ties in 1979 after the Islamist students stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took over 50 staffers hostage for 444 days.

Iran has made talks with the U.S. conditional on an end to the sanctions and the unfreezing of some 10 billion dollars of its assets in U.S. banks since November 1980.