{"id":10450,"date":"2013-09-18T04:35:36","date_gmt":"2013-09-18T04:35:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/us-to-seize-iran-owned-skyscraper-in-new-york\/"},"modified":"2013-09-18T04:34:38","modified_gmt":"2013-09-18T04:34:38","slug":"us-to-seize-iran-owned-skyscraper-in-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/us-to-seize-iran-owned-skyscraper-in-new-york\/","title":{"rendered":"US to Seize ‘Iran-owned’ Skyscraper in New York"},"content":{"rendered":"

{{The United States is set seize control of a midtown Manhattan skyscraper prosecutors claim is secretly owned by Iran, the US justice department said, though the ruling is to be appealed.}}<\/p>\n

The seizure and sale of the 36-storey building, in the heart of New York City on Fifth Avenue, would be “the largest-ever terrorism-related forfeiture,” the statement added.<\/p>\n

A federal judge ruled in favour of the government’s suit this week, saying The Piaget Building’s owners had violated Iran sanctions and money laundering laws.<\/p>\n

Manhattan Federal Prosecutor Preet Bharara said the decision upholds the justice department claims the owner of the building “was (and is) a front for Bank Melli, and thus a front for the Government of Iran”.<\/p>\n

Bharara said the funds from selling the building would provide “a means of compensating victims of Iranian-sponsored terrorism”.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors allege the building’s owners, the Alavi Foundation and Assa Corporation, transferred rental income and other funds to Iran’s state-owned Bank Melli.<\/p>\n

Alavi also ran a charitable organisation for Iran and managed the building for the Iranian government, the statement said.<\/p>\n

Built in the 1970s by a non-profit organisation operated by the Shah of Iran – and financed with a Bank Melli loan – the building was expropriated by the new Iranian government after the 1979 revolution, prosecutors allege.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

aljazeera<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{{The United States is set seize control of a midtown Manhattan skyscraper prosecutors claim is secretly owned by Iran, the US justice department said, though the ruling is to be appealed.}} The seizure and sale of the 36-storey building, in the heart of New York City on Fifth Avenue, would be “the largest-ever terrorism-related forfeiture,” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2000048314,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-10450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000048314,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10450.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10450.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10450.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10450.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10450.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10450.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000048314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10450"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=10450"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=10450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}