Irans legal battle against the US and Israel

TEHRAN – The 12-day war waged by the U.S. and Israel against Iran in 2025, along with the current one that began in February, has been marked by unprecedented attacks on schools, hospitals, homes, roads, bridges, power plants, and desalination plants—actions that are considered war crimes under international law. 

Iran's military has so far refrained from carrying out similar acts in retaliation. However, the country has initiated a legal process to hold the U.S. and Israel accountable for their actions. The Tehran Times interviewed Dr. Hassan Abdolianpour, the Head of the Iranian Judiciary's Center for Attorneys and Experts, who has been leading this mission since last year. The interview aims to shed light on the process, its progress, potential outcomes, and various legal aspects. 

Below is the full text of the interview, edited for clarity and conciseness.

Could you please explain what constitutes a war crime, both under Iranian law and under international law?

The question you have raised is one we hear quite often these days, as people are constantly hearing that such-and-such an act or incident constitutes a war crime, or that crimes committed against our country over the past year or so, during last two recent wars, amount to war crimes. 

War crime is a key topic in international law referring to the violation of international humanitarian law, and we must distinguish between two terms: human rights and humanitarian law. Humanitarian law consists of rules specific to times of war, and war crime in its specific sense means the violation of the laws of war, encompassing acts such as mass killings, the intentional killing of civilians, torture, hostage-taking, the destruction of civilian property, sexual assault, and looting, all of which are clear instances of war crimes. 

Committing a war crime incurs individual criminal responsibility for military personnel, meaning any individual in the command structure, whether a soldier or a commander, who orders or attempts to commit mass killing, genocide, ethnic cleansing, or the military use of children, or who violates the legal distinction between the principles of proportionality and military necessity accepted in international humanitarian law, is held accountable. Article 8 of the Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court, enumerates these instances, and Human Rights Watch has stated in its doctrine that intentionally targeting civilians during a war constitutes a war crime. 

Our country has certainly accepted these laws, and the crimes committed against us throughout history since the Islamic Revolution, during the first, second, and third imposed wars, are clear examples of war crimes, genocide, or the four international crimes for which legislation is now necessary. Regarding our own domestic law, a bill on international crimes was submitted to the Iranian Parliament some time ago, and a few days ago, its general provisions were approved. These four international crimes are genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. Parliament has approved the general provisions, and we hope it will pass final approval so that the jurisdiction for holding such trials, for which there is currently a legal void in our country, can be established. This is a demand of all the people, and nine thousand lawyers have urged the representatives to expedite the approval of the war crimes bill, which we hope passes soon to fill this legal void in the country.

 Iran is currently pursuing cases of U.S.-Israeli war crimes legally. Can you explain this process?

These days we engage on three fronts: combat warfare, where our fighters excel at the launchers; diplomatic warfare, which our colleagues in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are actively pursuing; and a third battlefront that has been less visible—the legal battle. In my view, this operates parallel to the other two, and we must enter this legal fight with the same strength as the combat and diplomatic fronts. For legal lawsuits and complaints to end in victory, both in domestic and international courts, we need a strong foundation of evidence. This means our complaints must have robust documentation, so it is essential that the crimes imposed on our country are examined and documented by experts. This is the first step.

Our center—the Center for Attorneys, Experts, and Family Counselors of the Judiciary—established this front by issuing a call for experts across the country. Nineteen thousand experts from various disciplines responded, going to every corner of the country to observe damaged and attacked locations with both speed and precision. We needed this experience because we previously faced problems where American courts would seize Iranian frozen assets based on baseless lawsuits and frivolous judgments. They obtained damages—material, moral, and punitive—and enforced them by seizing our assets. We needed to create a reciprocal deterrent.

We began filing real, documented cases, such as the martyrs of the Chovar football field, the martyrs of fight against terrorism, the martyred police officers, and the burnt benches of Boroujerd. In 2022, our leadership demanded that we pursue the Ilam incident, where a sports field was bombed by the Ba'athist regime during the first imposed war with military assistance from the United States. We obtained power of attorney from the families of the martyrs, held the trial in Ilam, and secured a judgment. This success created a public demand across the country to pursue other cases.

The case of the Boroujerd elementary schools, where the Iraqi regime attacked schools in 1986, was similarly significant. We filed lawsuits against 56 American officials, institutions, and agencies. We were very concerned that, due to a lack of documentation, the positions of martyr and executioner could be swapped. Therefore, we conducted expert work very precisely from the start. In Tehran alone, we issued 50,000 expert opinions for the municipality, and this service was done for free across Iran. These expert opinions provided the resources to file strong claims in courts to recover rights unjustly taken from our nation.

Legal action meant obtaining power of attorney from our people to file criminal complaints in prosecutor's offices and civil lawsuits in courts, such as Branch 55 of the Tehran court. Prominent domestic and international lawyers prepared these lawsuits. Our complaints for the families of martyrs were extensive; for instance, the lawsuit for the Minab martyrs included 2,000 pages of attachments and documentation. We ensured these documents were reviewed multiple times before being served.

This service was real. When we say the summons were served to Trump personally, to the White House, the Treasury Department, the Department of War, and Lockheed Martin, it was real service. The lawsuits were physically delivered to the White House office, signed for, and the second copy returned to our case files. We acted with extreme precision because this international legal pursuit takes significant time, and we needed to ensure there would be no obstacles in executing these judgments.

This strategy was validated when we seized four ships in the Persian Gulf by court order. These were the judgments we had previously obtained, and we simply requested writs of execution which our armed forces then enforced. The assets from these seized ships will be used to collect the debts owed by these American criminals and returned to our people.

Conversely, the enemy has not been idle; they frequently file lawsuits against Iran in the occupied territories and U.S. courts, creating a system to register complaints against us rapidly. We needed a reciprocal deterrent, so we designed a system called Legal Battle in cyberspace. This allows our lawyers to receive power of attorney from the public. After identity verification, individuals can grant us power of attorney, which is registered in both Persian and English. Many people from abroad have also joined this effort. More than 4 million people have granted us power of attorney so far to seek damages for the injustices inflicted upon our country. This system is fully coordinated with the Civil Registration Organization, and our lawyers are also present at public gatherings across the country, manually collecting power of attorney to ensure our legal fight is comprehensive and strong.

Can you tell us who ordered this process, what stage it is currently at, and where you expect these efforts to lead?

In a meeting last year following the 12-day war, we were in the presence of our martyred Leader, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, accompanying the head of the Judiciary. The martyred Leader addressed the pursuit of international claims regarding the crimes committed against our country, stating that we had been negligent so far and must not be negligent from now on. He directed us to seize these criminals by the collar, even if it takes 20 years, noting that this international pursuit process takes time and they will not easily let us succeed. He emphasized that sometimes an independent judge is found who might issue a ruling that would make the free people of the world happy, and urged us to pursue this with vigilance and strength.

Following this divine directive, the head of the Judiciary formed a legal pursuit headquarters, which we represent today. He issued a special directive to take this work very seriously, and we responded by doing everything possible legally and in terms of expertise. All the expert reports we submit are in international formats and frameworks. We prepared templates and placed them on our internal system, 1515, so our experts could conduct their work based on these international formats. Recently, a group of international lawyers came to Tehran. One famous human rights lawyer and veteran judge, met with the head of the Judiciary and stated that the documentation prepared by our lawyers and experts is so strong and precise that he could guarantee filing a lawsuit within a month. This showed we observed the proper frameworks for international action.

We proceeded under this divine command, which was a difficult task. We held negotiations with reputable lawyers, international bar associations, and legal scholars, traveling extensively to build a legal consensus. Recently, we were invited to a legal conference with scholars from 28 countries. To maximize our impact, we brought backpacks containing photos of the martyrs of the Shajareh Tayyebeh school in Minab and gave them to the scholars. The result was an emotional response, with many stating they would not hesitate to help the Iranian people in any international legal pursuit. We built solidarity there with lawyers who had the capacity to pursue these matters, and since that country possessed universal jurisdiction and was an ICC member, they allowed us to file several claims there.

We have submitted lawsuits based on priorities set by the head of the Judiciary, who instructed us to prioritize our work. Our first priority was the Shajareh Tayyebeh school in Minab, where horrific crimes occurred. We conducted physical, on-site expert work, and I promised the families of the martyrs that we would pursue these criminals to bring them to the trial table. We submitted the Minab lawsuit to the competent court. Our next priority, containing documentation of the Lamerd martyrs, was submitted to the Larestan court. Everything described in Article 8 of the Rome Statute occurred in Larestan, Lamerd, and Minab, representing a complete package of crimes. We collected all documentation with precision and speed, as many of these documents would have been lost if we had gone even six months later.

We are also pursuing the case of the soldiers martyred in the Bampur barracks in Iranshahr. While some might think of it as just a military base, it was actually a soldiers' dormitory. Under the rules of war, a country cannot simply attack another. To act within international regulations, the Americans would have needed Security Council authorization, which they did not have, or it would have had to be self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter, which it was not. Therefore, the attack on the Bampur barracks is a clear war crime, and we will prove this in international courts.

This work is based on a document we call “The Chain of Responsibility.†Everyone involved in the crime against the children of Minab—from the countries that provided land, airspace, fuel, takeoff, landing, or refueling—shares criminal responsibility. We have identified all of them. The Persian Gulf countries and Jordan, who were not approached in the past, are now among the defendants in our new lawsuit because we proved they were directly involved. We also have documentation that many European countries were involved. Proportionate to their responsibility in this criminal chain, we have filed cases against them in both domestic and international courts, and we will pursue them.

Some people might be skeptical about the effectiveness of these actions. The U.S. and its allies often ignore international law and courts, as we have seen in other wars like the recent genocide in Gaza. What do you say to those who ask, “What’s the point?”

That is a fair question. This arch-criminal of history, Trump, makes certain statements, and the Leader's serious demand in his message to the Judiciary during Judiciary Week was directed exactly at this issue. Following that message, the head of the Judiciary issued orders emphasizing that we must address the points this criminal raises that carry legal implications, as they represent clear admissions and confessions of his crimes.

We are currently compiling a book titled When the Scent of Gunpowder Lingers, which contains material extracted from his speeches, tweets, and governmental orders, as well as those of his fellow criminals. We are designing and extracting these details, and they will soon be published. What this famous liar and criminal is trying to do is create a false narrative. We must counter this, especially regarding his claims of self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter, because there is no legal basis for him to claim self-defense under that article. This is a precise legal perspective that we must maintain.

Recently, we invited famous international lawyers to Iran, including an attorney who previously filed cases at the International Criminal Court and successfully obtained arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, the former Zionist war minister. We brought them physically and on-site to many damaged locations in Tehran, Minab, Lar, and Lamerd. Just today, a documentary detailing this visit was broadcast by the Islamic Republic's broadcasting network. We took these lawyers there so they could observe firsthand the crimes committed in Lamerd, where new weapons were tested on humans for the first time, specifically on the oppressed people of Lamerd, as well as the destruction in Lar and Minab.

Just one day after these prominent lawyers visited Lar and Lamerd, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, knowing the track record of these legal experts, stated that they would not allow action to be taken at the ICC and threatened to close it down. This reaction showed us that we had hit the right target. The recent pressure and case-building against Karim Khan are directly related to these matters. We know that by issuing his rulings, Karim Khan put his own career and safety at risk, a reality that free lawyers and legal scholars worldwide recognize as the U.S. attempts to create obstacles.

Our martyred Imam was fully aware that this would be difficult and time-consuming when he stated that we must pursue this even if it takes 20 years. However, this does not mean we should sit back and assume we cannot succeed. We will perform our duty by taking all necessary actions in both domestic and international courts to achieve results. Supported by the prayers of the people and the special backing of the head of the Judiciary, we will utilize all our capacities at national and international levels. I promise the public that we will do our utmost, leaving the rest to God Almighty and the watchful eyes of the martyrs.

This is clearly a massive operation involving many parts of the Judiciary. Are other organizations or government bodies involved in this effort?

Yes, we have excellent cooperation with the Ministry of Justice, the Vice Presidency for Legal Affairs, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. All of these bodies have a legal role to play and have been very supportive and cooperative in this cause. This is a unified, national effort.

Finally, you have personally visited many of the sites that were illegally targeted by the U.S. and Israel. Is there one specific moment or memory from this process that has had a profound impact on you?

Many moments. The scene in Larestan is seared into my memory. We arrived very quickly—just two days after the attack—with a team of 11 experts. The journey was long, over 1,500 kilometers, but we had to be there. While on site, I witnessed a piece of a martyr’s body falling to the ground from the rubble. It was a heartbreaking, humbling moment that I will never forget.

Another time, in Tehran, we took lawyers to the home of a legal scholar that had been directly hit by a missile. When we entered, the room was full of scattered law books. The book on international law had been thrown to the ground. One of the visiting lawyers picked it up and said, “This is where international law fell.” It was a powerful and symbolic moment.

These scenes, from Minab to Tehran, are painful reminders of why we must persist. This is about honoring the innocent victims and ensuring that their suffering is not in vain. We will continue our efforts in both domestic and international courts, and I promise the Iranian people that we will do everything in our power to pursue justice. The rest is in God’s hands.

By Mona Hojat Ansari