Stuart Hersh
A still-suffering terror victim is hoping to exact some “suite revenge” on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — by taking over his suite at a posh Midtown hotel.
Lawyers for ex-New Yorker Stuart Hersh — who was severely injured in a 1997 suicide bombing in Israel — yesterday served The Warwick hotel with legal papers claiming rights to the hate-spewer’s rooms booked for his upcoming visit to the United Nations.
Hersh, 64, has a $12 million judgment against Iran for complicity in his wounds, which he claims entitles him to assume Ahmadinejad’s reservation or pocket whatever money the hotel gets paid for it.
“Ahmadinejad is going to be staying at The Warwick hotel, paying a fortune, and he owes me $12 million and he just won’t pay it,” Hersh told The Post by phone from Israel.
“He throws that in my face and in the face of America, saying: ‘Hey, I still got money — despite your sanctions.’ ”
One of his lawyers, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, of the Shurat HaDin/Israel Law Center, said, “If this war criminal Ahmadinejad needs a place to sleep, maybe the murderers over in the Libyan embassy can put him up for a night.”
Darshan-Leitner estimated that Iran would spend at least $20,000 a night to bunk its delegation at The Warwick for the week.
The hotel, on 54th Street at Sixth Avenue, ignored protests last year after it rented out rooms on its 18th floor to Ahmadinejad and his entourage so he could sleep in style after ranting against Israel and America.
The Holocaust denier, who last month called Israel a “cancerous tumor,” is reportedly scheduled to address the UN on Sept. 26, which is also Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.
Hersh, an American citizen and US Navy veteran who has lived in Israel since the mid-1970s, was sipping a cup of coffee at Jerusalem’s Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall when three suicide bombers blew themselves up there on Sept. 4, 1997.
The dastardly attack killed five people and wounded nearly 200 others, including Hersh, who was sitting less than 10 feet from a terrorist who had disguised himself as a woman.
Hersh was badly burned by the explosion and hit with shrapnel, and it left him with 60 percent hearing loss, a speech impediment, back pain and difficulty walking.
The former journalist said he hasn’t been able to work since the attack.
In addition to physical scars, he also suffered post-traumatic stress disorder that caused insomnia, nightmares and flashbacks, and led him to attempt suicide a year later.
In 2000, Hersh and other victims sued Iran in Washington, DC, federal court, for sponsoring the attack by providing training and support to the Hamas terror group.
A spokesman for The Warwick declined to comment on Hersh’s legal action or Ahmadinejad.
NY POST
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