Iran on Monday rejected a US court order for Tehran to pay $180 million in damages to a Washington Post reporter for jailing him on espionage charges. Jason Rezaian spent 544 days in an Iranian prison before he was released in January 2016 in exchange for seven Iranians held in the US. On Friday, a US district court judge ordered damages be paid to Rezaian and his family in compensation for pain and suffering as well as economic losses, AFP reported. The Iranian foreign ministrys spokesman described the journalists decision to seek damages as "strange." "Mr. Jason Rezaian... was a security convict and the Islamic Republic of Iran commuted his (sentence of maximum punishment) to imprisonment," said spokesman Abbas Mousavi. "He was pardoned and despite having an open case... he was released," Mousavi added. "For him to go there and lodge a complaint and for US courts to lavishly determine such figures" was a course of action that Iran "rejects", said Mousavi. "This was a favor that the Islamic Republic of Iran did for him," he said, adding that he could have been kept behind bars and punished more severely. Mousavi said Iran could itself take similar legal action against Washington, without elaborating. According to AFP, Rezaian and three other US were released on January 16, 2016, the day the nuclear agreement entered into force.