Most Americans never heard of Qasem Soleimani before he was killed in a drone attack earlier this month. But for years, one Oceanside family has been all too familiar with his name and his infamy.
"I just look at Soleimani as a terrorist," said Randy Freeman, who blames Soleimani and Iran for the death of his son.
Brian Freeman, a West Point graduate, and a U.S. Army Captain was one of four soldiers kidnapped and shot to death during an ambush in Iraq in 2007.
...still handcuffed together, [they] knelt them down on the side of the road and shot them in the back of the head and executed them.
Randy Freeman-Plaintiff
The Freemans are part of a civil complaint filed in 2016 by more than 300 plaintiffs who say Iran, through its proxies, committed terrorist acts against the U.S. military in Iraq.
The complaint involves more than 80 attacks by Iran and/or its agents in Iraq from 2004 to 2011.
Soleimani's name is included numerous times in the complaint that seeks to connect the dots between Iran and terrorist attacks.
Local
The plaintiffs' attorney, Cindy Schlanger from Osen Law, said the plaintiffs could be able to get money from a federal fund that compensates victims of state-sponsored terrorism. She said the attacks were not committed by uniformed military, they were not part of Iran's standing military. She says this was terrorism, not an act of war.
Freeman says he does not care about the money.
"The main thing I told the attorney is to get the bad guys. Money is not important. Let people know what's going on out there," Freeman told NBC 7.
Freeman hopes the suit will bring awareness, just as Soleimani's death brought "some justice."
Freeman said when he heard that Soleimani had been killed, "I was glad he was not able to kill another person's child and cause the heartache."
He also said, "I was glad to see he is no longer on the earth, I mean he's a human being, and all of that, but he was personally responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, including my son."
In August, a federal judge made an initial ruling in favor of the plaintiffs, ruling that support in seven attacks came from Soleimani's Quds Force.
