The petition is currently being prepared and will be submitted to the ICJ as the only qualified body to deal with the case, Tavakkol Habibzadeh, the head of the Presidential Office’s center for legal and international affairs said on Saturday.
He was speaking at a meeting in Tehran, which assessed the legal aspects of the assassination of Martyr Soleimani. The meeting took place on the anniversary of the assassination that took place on January 3, 2020 near Iraq’s capital Baghdad.
Habibzadeh said that Iran is pursuing General Soleimani’s assassination based on the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Internationally Protected Persons, which was adopted in 1973. Both Iran and the United States are parties to that convention, he added.
The official explained that Iran is pursuing the case based on that convention, because the terrorist nature of the killing of General Soleimani has already been proved, considering that Washington’s argument of conducting the drone strike in a manner of legitimate defense has been rejected.
Habibzadeh was referring to a report on the use of armed drones for targeted killings, which UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Agnès Callamard, submitted to the Human Rights Council in August 2020. In that report, Ms. Callamard concluded that the targeting of General Soleimani constituted an arbitrary killing for which the US stands responsible.
The Iranian official also said that, based on a process set under the 1973 convention, the Iranian Foreign Ministry has sent two separate notes to the US to invite it for negotiations, with the first one being sent in mid-September 2023.
Based on international regulations, the US has six months to respond to the notes, Habibzadeh said, adding that if Washington gives no response within that period, Iran’s petition will be registered at the ICJ.
SD/IRN