Published 20:07 IST, January 21st 2020
Iranian lawmaker announces $3 million reward to 'whoever kills Trump': Report
An Iranian lawmaker stoked fresh controversy amid worsening relations with Washington by announcing an award of $3 mn for killing US President Donald Trump.
- World News
- 2 min read
An Iranian lawmaker stoked fresh controversy amid worsening relations with Washington by announcing an award of $3 million for killing US President Donald Trump. Such announcements have been made in the recent past but not from a lawmaker and that too in the Parliament.
Iranian semi-official agency reported that Ahmad Hamzeh declared a prize of $3 million on behalf of people of Kerman province for “whoever kills Trump”. Kerman province is the hometown of slain Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani who was killed in a drone strike, on January 3, ordered by the US President.
Similar bounty announcement
During the funeral procession of Soleimani on January 6, a eulogist had announced a bounty of $80 million on Trump, broadcasted live on a state TV station. “We are 80 million Iranians. If each one of us puts aside one American dollar, we will have 80 million American dollars, and we will reward anyone who brings us (Trump)’s head with that amount,” said the eulogist to the huge crowd gathered in Mashhad. The man went on to say that whoever brings the head of “yellow-haired lunatic” will get $80 million “on behalf of the great Iranian nation”.
Since then, Iran has carried several retaliatory attacks on Iraq’s military bases that housed US troops. Iran has also announced that it will file a lawsuit against the United States for assassinating its top military leader. Tehran’s Judiciary spokesperson Gholam Hossein Esmaeili reportedly said that they will file the case in Iran, Iraq, and at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in Hague.
Trump's decision to take out Soleimani was questioned by Democrats as they doubted the justification of 'imminent threat'. The officials kept shifting the definitions saying they didn’t know the precise details of the threat. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has also been largely inconsistent with the threat information saying they were unaware of the exact date and time of the potential attack but Soleimani was plotting a broad, large-scale attack against American interests, and those attacks were imminent.
(With inputs from agencies)
Updated 20:07 IST, January 21st 2020