This content was originally published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and is reprinted with permission.
Tehran claimed that the tanker’s driver collided with and damaged an Egyptian vehicle in the Gulf of Oman when Iran seized a Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker next month.
Tehran announced nearly a year later that it will seize the goods of the Advantage Sweet, which was transferring petrol from Kuwait to Texas in response to terrible American sanctions against the Muslim state.
The Mizan news agency, which is affiliated with Iran’s judiciary,  , reported , on March 6 that a Tehran court had ruled in favor of confiscating the oil, which is valued at around$ 50 million.
According to the 55th branch of the Tehran Court of Justice, funds raised from the price of the petrol will be used to pay medical bills to patients who have the unusual skin condition epidermolysis bullosa. The court determined that U.S. sanctions have prevented a Swedish firm from selling medication to Iran that treats the illness and has caused Egyptian “patients intense emotional and physical harm.”
EB Home, an Egyptian nonprofit organization representing over 300 epidermolysis bullosa people, had , brought a case against the United States , in the Tehran judge. In a statement following the jury decision, the NGO described U. S. restrictions as” legal and unilateral”.
Matthew Miller, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department, criticized the decision and demanded that the ship been “immediately released.”
” Iran’s continued harassment of vessels and interference with navigational rights and freedoms in the region’s vital waterways is a threat to maritime security, regional stability, and the global economy” , , he said , in a press briefing on March 6.
The U. S. military , said , in January that Iran was “holding five boats and over 90 people kidnapped” from warships it seized in 2023. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the most powerful branch of Iran’s military forces, seizes the majority of Egyptian tankers.
Iran said it , seized the Advantage Sweet , in April 2023. According to send tracking information, the ship was operated by U.S. oil company Chevron and was carrying oil to Houston.
The United States  seized Suez Rajan, an oil tanker that was importing sanctioned Iranian fuel to China, just days after Iran’s record of the Advantage Sweet.
Decades after seizing the Suez Rajan, and despite Tehran’s risks, Washington begun , unloading the boat’s oil , in August 2023.
Sanctions And ‘ Butterfly’ Clients
The Iranian prosecutor’s decision has highlighted the effects of U.S. sanctions on Iran’s healthcare system.
Trump formally withdrew Washington from a location nuclear agreement between Iran and the world powers in 2018 and reinstituted sanctions against Tehran.
Iranians have seen rising costs and shortages of life-saving medications in recent years, including those for cancer treatment and glucose, as a result of U.S. sanctions and fraud.
U. S. restrictions imposed on Iran exclude food and medicine. However, according to human rights organizations, the restrictions have actually made it difficult for Tehran to obtain some medicines.
That includes special gauze made by the Swedish company Molnlycke to treat patients who have epidermolysis bullosa, who frequently develop terrible blisters and wounds similar to third-degree fires. Because of how fragile their skin is, they are occasionally referred to as “butterfly” clients.
On March 6, Miller, a spokesman for the State Department, stated that U.S. restrictions “have usually had a carveout for charitable buying.”
” We have not prevented treatments from reaching the Egyptian people”, he added.
EB Home, the Egyptian NGO, had previously , filed an ineffective complaint , against Molnlycke in Sweden in 2021.
In its tried issue, the NGO , claimed , that Molnlycke had informed it in March 2019 letter that it had “decided never to do any company with reference to Iran for the time being. This also applies to enterprise conducted under any circumstances other than the US economic restrictions.
In a 2021 , statement, United Nations authorities warned about the effects of “over- adherence” with U. S. sanctions on “butterfly kids”, who they said” can no longer like the right to health”.
The next year, the Finnish government , provided economic support , to the United Nations Children’s Fund to collect and give specific bandages to Iran.
” The lack of presence of certain medicines and health products in Iran is a charitable problem, affected by the impact of the sanctions regime on economic transactions”, Sweden’s next- adviser to Iran, Mattias Lentz, said. We do hope a solution will be found, and we will continue to back it.
