UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA NASRIN MOHAMMADI ...

200 Pages·2013·0.76 MB·English

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
NASRIN MOHAMMADI, et al., :
:
Plaintiffs, : Docket No.: CA 09-1289
:
vs. : Washington, DC
: 9:07 a.m., Thursday
ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN, : April 4, 2013
et al., :
:
Defendants. :
X
REPORTER'S OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT OF BENCH TRIAL
BEFORE THE HONORABLE BERYL A. HOWELL
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
APPEARANCES:
For the Plaintiff: L A R R Y E . K L A YMAN, ESQ.
Law Office of Larry Klayman
2020 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Suite 345
Washington, DC 20006
[phone]
The Court Reporter: CHANTAL M. GENEUS, RPR, CRR
Certified Realtime Reporter
Registered Professional Reporter
United States District Court
333 Constitution Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20001
Proceedings reported by machine shorthand. Transcript
produced by computer-aided transcription.
2
1 I N D E X
2
3 WITNESSES: PAGE
4 MANOUCHEHR MOHAMMADI
5 DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. KLAYMAN 28
6 NASRIN MOHAMMADI
7 DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. KLAYMAN 86
8 ROBERT JAMES WOOLSEY, JR.,
9 DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. KLAYMAN 114
10 KENNETH R. TIMMERMAN
11 DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. KLAYMAN 122
12 NASRIN MOHAMMADI
13 DIRECT EXAMINATION (RESUMED) 160
14 BY MR. KLAYMAN
15
16 E X H I B I T S
17 PLF.S'
NO. DESCRIPTION MARKED ADMITTED
18
1 Video of Akbar's body 63
19
2 Amnesty International report 96 98
20
3 Book entitled, "Ideas and Lashes" 111 113
21 by Akbar Mohammadi
22 5 Four photographs 145 147
23 4 Affidavit of Mr. Timmerman 153 153
24
25
Chantal M. Geneus, RPR, CRR, Official Court Reporter
[phone]
3
1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2 (Whereupon, at 9:07 a.m. the proceedings
3 commenced and the following ensued:)
4 THE COURTROOM DEPUTY: Matter before the
5 Court, Civil Action Number 09-1289, Manouchehr
6 Mohammadi, et al. versus Islamic Republic of Iran,
7 et al.
8 Counsel, please come forward and identify
9 yourselves for the record.
10 MR. KLAYMAN: Thank you, Your Honor. Nice
11 to meet you.
12 THE COURT: Good morning, Mr. Klayman. Yes,
13 nice to see you in person. We've only had telephonic
14 conferences so far.
15 MR. KLAYMAN: I appreciate your
16 accommodating us on the dates.
17 THE COURT: Yes.
18 MR. KLAYMAN: This is Mr. Mohammadi sitting
19 on my left, and he's the plaintiff, and our
20 interpreter, Mr. Mohammad Moslehi, our translator.
21 THE COURTROOM DEPUTY: Your Honor, the
22 interpreter has been sworn.
23 THE COURT: Thank you.
24 So for the record, the interpreter has been
25 sworn in.
Chantal M. Geneus, RPR, CRR, Official Court Reporter
[phone]
4
1 Is Mr. Mohammadi fairly fluent in English or
2 really not very fluent?
3 MR. KLAYMAN: Not very fluent.
4 THE COURT: I see. All right.
5 So, Mr. Klayman, thank you very much. I got
6 your bench memo this morning, which was a quick
7 turnaround, given my questions about jurisdictional
8 issues in this case.
9 So if you don't mind, I'd like to go through
10 some of my questions because your bench memo, while
11 helpful, didn't answer all of them.
12 So I'd like to start with that.
13 MR. KLAYMAN: Okay.
14 THE COURT: First, I just want to put on the
15 record at the beginning of this bench trial something
16 that we discussed at our telephonic conference about
17 the scope of the claims here --
18 MR. KLAYMAN: Yes.
19 THE COURT: -- and make sure that my
20 understanding, based on that telephonic conference, is
21 correct that this case, although originally brought on
22 behalf of a class, is no longer being pursued as a
23 class action at all. The only plaintiffs who are
24 seeking any relief in this case are the four
25 plaintiffs named in the second amended complaint.
Chantal M. Geneus, RPR, CRR, Official Court Reporter
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1 Am I correct on that?
2 MR. KLAYMAN: That is correct. Right.
3 THE COURT: Now, my next question has to do
4 with whether or not each of the four plaintiffs is
5 seeking relief under each of the four claims in the
6 second amended complaint.
7 MR. KLAYMAN: They are.
8 THE COURT: Including for assault and
9 battery?
10 MR. KLAYMAN: Yes.
11 THE COURT: Okay. So each of the four
12 plaintiffs are subject to assault and battery? It
13 wasn't clear from the complaint.
14 MR. KLAYMAN: They are actually still being
15 subjected to that. They are being threatened by
16 telephone, by Internet, with serious bodily injury,
17 and death.
18 They're activists. They're out there
19 speaking on behalf of the Iranian freedom movement.
20 So even to this day -- that's one of the things I put
21 into the memo this morning -- they continue to be
22 harassed, in effect, mentally tortured and harmed.
23 THE COURT: All right. Let me just ask you.
24 I mean, I saw it in the memo today. Is that the
25 second amended complaint allegation?
Chantal M. Geneus, RPR, CRR, Official Court Reporter
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1 MR. KLAYMAN: Which allegation?
2 THE COURT: The allegation of continued
3 harassment, which was the term I think you used in
4 your bench memo.
5 MR. KLAYMAN: Yeah. I haven't gone through
6 that, Your Honor. I can go through it at lunchtime.
7 But certainly, either explicitly or implicitly, that
8 these acts continue.
9 We can just do this in English right now.
10 THE COURT: All right.
11 MR. KLAYMAN: And we have live testimony
12 with respect to that.
13 THE COURT: I've looked at the second
14 amended complaint, and there's no allegation that I
15 could see about this continuing once the plaintiffs
16 reached the United States.
17 You've also sought punitive damages, and I
18 have some concern about the scope of my authority to
19 provide for, you know, punitive damages.
20 So could you just explain to me what the
21 basis is for the plaintiffs being entitled to punitive
22 damages against all four defendants.
23 There are four defendants in the second
24 amended complaint, right?
25 MR. KLAYMAN: The same basis, Your Honor.
Chantal M. Geneus, RPR, CRR, Official Court Reporter
[phone]
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1 THE COURT: For, you know, in particular,
2 punitive damages on the common law claims?
3 MR. KLAYMAN: It would be the outrageous
4 nature of the behavior, extreme behavior. I can brief
5 this further, Your Honor. I did not look at that
6 today.
7 However, we have Judge Lamberth's recent
8 decisions with regard to the Foreign Sovereign
9 Immunity Act and the Alien Tort Claims Act, and he did
10 grant punitive damages to the defendants [sic], who
11 were in a similar position to our plaintiffs in this
12 case. So the punitives certainly are applicable under
13 the statutory claims.
14 THE COURT: Are you referring to the Bodoff
15 v. Iran case?
16 MR. KLAYMAN: The O'Brien versus Islamic
17 Republic of Iran, if Your Honor would like a copy.
18 THE COURT: No. I think I've got it here.
19 MR. KLAYMAN: That is one measure of
20 damages. And Judge Lamberth ordered a substantial
21 amount of punitive damages in that case.
22 THE COURT: All right. Well, let's now turn
23 to what our -- what are, to me, the more significant
24 subject matter jurisdictional issues here.
25 I understand from your bench memo that,
Chantal M. Geneus, RPR, CRR, Official Court Reporter
[phone]
8
1 through your reference to, you know, the "FSIA, et
2 seq.," that you were also meaning to incorporate
3 Section 1605(a).
4 MR. KLAYMAN: Correct.
5 THE COURT: And in particular with 1605(a),
6 the state-sponsored terrorism provision requires for
7 this Court to exercise subject matter jurisdiction is
8 something that you have outlined. It's not paginated,
9 I guess. Page 4 --
10 MR. KLAYMAN: I apologize. We did this
11 quickly traveling to DC.
12 THE COURT: No. I appreciate that.
13 Where you say on the top of the page:
14 "There are three requirements: One, state sponsor of
15 terrorism."
16 I don't think there's any question here that
17 that requirement is met in this case.
18 MR. KLAYMAN: Correct.
19 THE COURT: Second, the claimant is a
20 national of the United States, as you stated in your
21 bench memo. And, three, the foreign state is afforded
22 the opportunity to arbitrate.
23 Now, before going to the second requirement,
24 which I think is the one that is most troubling to me
25 here, let me just turn quickly to the arbitration, you
Chantal M. Geneus, RPR, CRR, Official Court Reporter
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1 know, requirement. I guess it's your position that
2 the fact that you filed a complaint and received no --
3 and served the complaint and summons on Iran here with
4 no response is sufficient to meet the requirement of
5 the arbitration --
6 MR. KLAYMAN: Correct.
7 THE COURT: -- requirement?
8 MR. KLAYMAN: Correct.
9 THE COURT: And do you have case law on
10 that?
11 MR. KLAYMAN: Well, the same thing occurred
12 with regard to the Judge Lamberth decision, the
13 O'Brien case. There was no response at all. And
14 there's been a whole series of cases out there -- we
15 can brief this further if Your Honor would like --
16 where the same thing has happened. Iran never
17 responds to anything. So consequently, it was hard to
18 get dialogue with them or have them assert any right
19 to arbitrate.
20 THE COURT: Right. Well, I'm going to -- I
21 will ask you to supplement your briefing on that
22 point --
23 MR. KLAYMAN: Sure.
24 THE COURT: -- so that I can be assured that
25 merely ignoring a summons and complaint is sufficient
Chantal M. Geneus, RPR, CRR, Official Court Reporter
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1 to meet the requirement of affording a foreign state
2 the opportunity to arbitrate. If the cover letter,
3 for example, for the summons and complaint doesn't say
4 something as simple as if you want to arbitrate these
5 claims, we're willing to, or let us know, or something
6 like that -- you know, some more explicit offer to
7 arbitrate.
8 So if you would educate me on that,
9 Mr. Klayman, I invite you to do so.
10 MR. KLAYMAN: Okay.
11 THE COURT: Another person just walked in.
12 Do you want to introduce this person sitting at
13 counsel table.
14 MR. KLAYMAN: This is Miss Nasrin Mohammadi.
15 She's another plaintiff.
16 THE COURT: Good morning, Miss Mohammadi.
17 MS. MOHAMMADI: Good morning.
18 THE COURT: All right. Are there any other
19 plaintiff parties who you are expecting to arrive?
20 MR. KLAYMAN: Not who would testify here
21 today.
22 THE COURT: All right. Okay.
23 MR. KLAYMAN: Today, Your Honor, we'll have
24 Mr. Manouchehr Mohammadi testify. He may not finish.
25 He's going to be the primary witness in this case,
Chantal M. Geneus, RPR, CRR, Official Court Reporter
[phone]