Owners of Iranian fuel seized by US raise challenge in court
The US Justice Department says the companies challenging the fuel seizure are fronts for Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Three companies claiming to own more than 1.1 million barrels of Iranian fuel offloaded by US authorities from four fuel tankers bound for Venezuela last month have challenged the seizure in US federal court, Reuters reported Wednesday.
Last month the US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced US authorities had taken possession of a multimillion-dollar shipment of gasoline aboard four tankers — the Lina, the Pandi, the Bella and the Bering — after the ships’ owner, Giorgios Gialozoglou, agreed to surrender the cargo.
The United States says the tankers were carrying Iranian gasoline bound for Venezuela on behalf of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which the United States considers a terrorist organization. Washington is engaged in a so-called maximum pressure campaign built around economic sanctions aimed at isolating and weakening the Iranian and Venezuelan governments.
Oman Fuel, registered in the United Kingdom, as well as Sohar Fuel and Mobin International, based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), challenged the seizure in a filing Wednesday in a federal court in Washington, Reuters reported.
