Iran’s central bank is preparing to file a motion in a New York federal court to release nearly $2 billion of its frozen funds at Citigroup Inc.’s Citibank unit, lawyers for the bank told the Wall Street Journal.

The assets were frozen in 2008, the Journal reported, after a group of 1,000 victims of international terrorism sought the money as partial payment for a $2.7 billion judgement made against Tehran for its alleged role in the 1983 bombing of a Marine Corps barracks in Beirut that killed 241.

Luxembourg-based Clearstream Banking SA deposited the money in Citibank. Attorneys for Bank Markazi, as the Iranian central bank is called, are going to argue that it’s illegal under U.S. law to freeze the assets, the Journal reported, saying the lawyers cite the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act as a safeguard from seizure by litigants of the U.S. holdings of any foreign central bank.

1:10 pm  •  30 December 2011  •  2 notes