TEHRAN – Abbasali Kadkhodaei, a legal expert who acts as spokesman for the Guardian Council, says the British government has resorted to “judicial piracy” after its recent act of maritime piracy.

Kadkhodaei was referring to a high court in London which has ruled that the UK does not have to pay at least £20m interest on the £387m it owes to Iran over the cancelled sale of Chieftain tanks in the 1970s.

“It seems that after the recent maritime piracy, the British high court has resorted to judicial piracy and is seeking to lift the Iranian people’s money like a hundred years ago,” Kadkhodaei wrote on his Instagram page on Friday.

A ruling by Justice Phillips this week said the UK did not owe interest accumulated over 10 years on the sum it acknowledges it owes to Iran.

Furthermore, the court ruled it wasn’t clear whether there is a body the UK can pay without breaching sanctions.

It came weeks after British Royal Marines in Gibraltar stormed a supertanker carrying Iranian oil off the coast of Gibraltar, seizing the 300,000-ton vessel based on the accusation that it was carrying oil to Syria in possible violation of the European Union’s sanctions on the war-torn country.

MH/PA