THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- Iran's tortured relations with the United States took a bizarre turn this month when two Iranian judges beat up a Swedish arbitrator involved in settling thousands of claims between the two countries.

The brawl did more than explode the silence normally surrounding the work of the Iran-U.S claims tribunal, created in 1981 as part of an accord that freed 52 Americans held hostage for more than a year at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.


As a result of the beating, the tribunal's deliberations have been suspended, leaving in doubt the future of more than 3,000 claims involving billions of dollars.

The tribunal comprises three American judges, three Iranians and three neutrals -- two from Sweden and one from the Netherlands. It is the only forum in which Americans and Iranians have maintained regular high-level contact.

The future of these contacts has been in jeopardy since about 10 a.m. Sept. 3.

The tribunal's Iranian and American members had taken their seats in the chamber. When Judge Nils Mangard of Sweden walked in, Judges Mahmoud M. Kashani and Shafey Shafeiei ofIran sprang from their seats, grabbed him by the collar, twisted his arm behind his back and began pounding him.

Police rushed to rescue the 69-year-old Lagergren, escorting him out of the chamber. He was not hurt badly, but Iranian-American relations had taken another bashing.

The tribunal's Swedish president, Judge Gunnar Lagergren, immediately canceled all further proceedings.

'It was an incident which appears to be without precedent in the history of international arbitration,' Lagergren said in a letter to the U.S. and Iranian governments.

'I determine that a situation exists in which the conduct of arbitration in an appropriate manner is for the time being not feasible.'

Officials who reported the incident declined to be specific about what set it off. Lagergren says it came after months of pent-up frustration among the Iranians.

The outburst was not the end of the matter. Two days later, Kashani threatened to kill Mangard.

'If Mangard ever dares to enter the tribunal chamber again, either his corpse or my corpse will leave it rolling down the stairs,' he was quoted by diplomats as telling tribunal officials.

Dutch police have taken no action. The incident is regarded as a tribunal matter and all the officials involved have diplomatic immunity.

'There are simply no rules in the international law books on how to deal with an assault by one arbitrator on another,' said Lagergren.

Swedish Embassy officials said their government had no official view on the matter because the judges were involved in an international forum and did not represent Sweden.

U.S. representative John Crook, who witnessed the 'simply shocking' attack on Mangard, said the United States is outraged at the Iranians' behavior.

'Dr. Kashani and his collegues have not only refused to apologize for this incident, but they are continuing to use language that is threatening and absolutely unacceptable,' he said.

'We have expressed our outrage to the agent of the Islamic Republic of Iran and we have called upon him to ensure such an incident is not repeated.'

Kashani wrote the tribunal a letter complaining that Mangard is not objective. Although tribunal officials would not reveal the letter's exact contents, they recalled that Iran's bid to have Mangard ousted was turned down in 1982.

To date, neither Iran nor the United States have said what they plan to do about the the future of tribunal, whose judges work with a staff of 70 people from 18 nations.

By June 30, according to a tribunal spokesman, the judges had settled 324 of the 3,800-odd cases left pending by the breakdown in relations that followed the overthrow of the late Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and the subsequent hostage crisis.

The last major settlement came a month ago when the tribunal granted $49.8 million to R.J. Reynolds Tobacco International Inc. of North Carolina to cover payment for tobacco shipments to Iran prior to the U.S. embassy takeover.