Canadian court orders Iran to pay $200 million to B.C. man tortured for being ‘infidel’

A Canadian court has ordered the government of Iran to pay $200 million to a British Columbia mechanic who was branded an ‘infidel’ and tortured for criticizing the Islamic regime.

In a decision obtained by Global News, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice awarded $100 million in compensation and another $100 million in punitive damages to Zahed Haftlang.

The court said Haftlang, an Iranian refugee who fled to Canada in 2001, merited the unusually large sum because of the “years of mistreatment” and “lifetime of mental trauma” he suffered.

Justice Lee Akazaki wrote that while a single judgment might not deter Iran’s abuses, the “accumulation of damage awards, often executed against Iran’s frozen foreign assets, has some effect.”

Although foreign governments are generally immune from Canada’s civil courts, Justice Akazaki ruled that Iran’s torture of Haftlang was motivated by the regime’s politics, religion and ideology.

As a result, it amounted to “terrorist activity” akin to staging attacks on foreign soil intended to silence opposition to the regime, so Iran did not benefit from state immunity, the judge ruled.

“Iran is therefore liable to Mr. Haftlang and answerable to a civil judgment by this court for his loss caused by the acts committed against him,” according to the 13-page decision handed down on May 29.

The decision is the latest against Iran by a Canadian court under the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, which allows those impacted by terrorism to sue state sponsors of the groups that harmed them.

It marked the first time a court in Canada had found that terrorist activity included Iran’s atrocities against its own citizens, and could potentially open the door for many more such lawsuits.

Haftlang’s lawyer, Mark Arnold, said it may be the largest sum ever awarded to an individual in Canada. The Ontario court earlier awarded $100 million in damages to the estates of six passengers killed when the regime shot down Ukraine Airlines flight 752 on Jan. 8, 2020.

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The decision stems from abuses committed in the 1990s, but the regime has continued to mistreat opponents, most recently in January with the mass killing of anti-regime demonstrators.

While the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran in February initially raised hopes of regime change, that seems unlikely as U.S. President Donald Trump struggles to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

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Haftlang is now a Canadian citizen and works as an auto mechanic in North Vancouver, B.C. But before he resettled in Canada 25 years ago, he was recruited into the Iranian military at age 13.

At the time he enlisted as a child soldier, in 1981, Iran was at war with neighbouring Iraq. Haftlang was captured by Iraqi forces and held prisoner until the conflict ended, at which point he was sent home.

But Iranian authorities viewed him with suspicion, according to the court decision. At his debriefing, he criticized the Iranian regime, prompting authorities to call him an infidel and send him to prison.

During the two years he was held captive, Iranian police and prison guards beat him, attached objects to his genitals, electrocuted him and left him with head trauma, the court said.

Released in 1993, he went to work on government-operated cargo ships, where he got into arguments with those the judge described as “ideologically adherent crew members.”

Aboard the ship Iran Mazandaran, he insulted Iran’s Supreme Leader. Fearing the captain would report him, he jumped ship in Vancouver’s English Bay, and a kayaker helped him to shore.

Now married with two children, he sued the Iranian government in 2024 with the help of Arnold, a Toronto lawyer with a long record of successful civil court actions against the Islamic Republic.

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Before the court could rule on the case, it first had to decide whether Iran was immune from civil actions. Under the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, Iran can’t claim immunity for acts of terrorism.

Justice Akazaki found that Iran’s torture of Haftlang amounted to terrorism because it arose from the decision that “he was an infidel worthy of control and isolation from Iranian society.”

The “revolutionary arm” of the Iranian regime that is controlled by the Supreme Leader and his Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was responsible for Haftlang’s detention, the judge ruled.

“I also conclude that these revolutionary actors were driven by their suspicion of the returned prisoner of war because of his vocal dissent and the length of detention in the military prisons of Iraq,” the judge wrote.

“They branded him an ‘infidel’ and tortured him to condition him into loyalty to the Supreme Leader,” according to the decision, which said he was tortured “to suppress any misgivings he may have harboured about his participation as an Iranian soldier.”

“He was an ordinary person upset by the Iran to which he returned and was caught up in a paranoid regime’s cogs,” wrote the judge, who said what Haftlang endured was “no less an act of state terror than firing an ordnance into a residential area.”

By passing legislation lifting Iran’s immunity, Canada had “joined the chorus of nations requiring Iran to stop the use of violence and the threat of violence toward civilians as an instrument of foreign and domestic policy,” the judge added.

In addition to the $200 million, the court awarded a further $100,000 to Haftlang’s wife and $50,000 to his daughter for the “loss of guidance, care and companionship” caused by the regime’s actions.

Canada severed diplomatic relations with Iran in 2012 and added Tehran to its list of state sponsors of terrorism. Since then, terror victims have won several judgments against Iran in the Canadian courts.

To compensate them, Iran’s non-diplomatic assets in Canadian cities were sold off. The government views Tehran’s diplomatic properties, such as its Ottawa embassy building, as untouchable, but victims are seeking to change that through the courts.

Iranian officials have expressed outrage over the loss of their Canadian properties and bank accounts, accusing Ottawa of “economic terrorism.” They have also threatened to seize Canadian ships in retaliation.

Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca