When I heard the good news about Khatami being served ... I said... That's more like it. The only concern is if he had received Diplomatic visa.


WASHINGTON — When Iran's ex-president was having his picture taken with admirers at a gala dinner sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations in northern Virginia, he received an unexpected message from some of his former countrymen. It was a summons to appear at the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York in Manhattan.

On Thursday, lawyers representing seven Iranian Jewish families living in Los Angeles filed a lawsuit demanding that Mohammed Khatemi pay compensation for the disappearance of 12 of their relatives, who were detained, imprisoned, and in some cases tortured as they tried to leave Iran for Pakistan between 1994 and 1997. Mr. Khatemi became president of Iran in 1997.