Iran has transferred five Iranian-Americans from prison to house arrest, part of a possible deal over billions of dollars of Iranian assets frozen in South Korea.
Three of the five prisoners have been previously identified while two others have not been named publicly. Those identified include:
Siamak Namazi
Siamak Namazi, an energy executive, was arrested in 2015. He had been an advocate of closer ties between Iran and the West.
Iran sentenced both Namazi and his father, Baquer Namazi, to 10 years in the country’s notorious Evin Prison on what the US and UN say are trumped-up spying charges.
Baquer was placed under house arrest for medical reasons in 2018 but prevented from leaving Iran despite his family’s pleas that he travel to receive emergency heart surgery after suffering multiple hospitalizations. He ultimately left Iran in October 2022.
Siamak is the longest-held Iranian-American held in Tehran. He appealed to President Joe Biden in an essay in The New York Times in June 2022 as American and Iranian nuclear negotiators met for indirect talks in Doha, Qatar, demanding he intervene to “end this nightmare.”
Emad Sharghi
The murky espionage charges against Iranian-American businessman Emad Sharghi came to light in early 2021, when an Iranian court announced that the venture capitalist had been sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison.
His family says Iran had cleared him of spying charges in December 2019 after jailing and interrogating him for months. Iran says security forces then caught Sharghi on the country’s northwestern border and re-arrested him as he tried to flee Iran while free on bail.
Morad Tabhaz
Morad Tahbaz, a British-American conservationist of Iranian descent, was meant to be released from prison on furlough as part of Iran’s deal with the UK to resolve a long-running debt dispute in March 2022.
That agreement freed two high-profile detainees, charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and retired civil engineer Anoosheh Ashoori, who flew home to London. But Tahbaz remained stuck in Iran. Reports soon emerged that he was sent back to prison despite the furlough promise.
Tahbaz was caught in a dragnet targeting environmental activists while visiting Iran in January 2018 and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
A look at known Iranian-Americans held by Iran as the US seeks a prisoner release deal
https://arab.news/yf8aq
A look at known Iranian-Americans held by Iran as the US seeks a prisoner release deal
- Three of the five prisoners have been previously identified while two others have not been named publicly
UN chief expresses deep concern over escalating Iran-US tensions
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for diplomatic engagement to resolve differences between the United States and Iran amid a surge in military activities and rhetoric across the Middle East, his spokesperson said on Friday.
“We are very concerned about the heightened rhetoric we’re seeing around the region by the heightened military activities, war games or just military, increased military, naval presence in the region. And we encourage both the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran to continue to engage in diplomacy in order to settle the differences,” said Stephane Dujarric, the spokesperson for UN secretary-general.
The call for restraint follows a formal letter delivered on Thursday by Amir Saeid Iravani, Iran’s permanent representative to the UN, addressed to the Secretary-General and the President of the Security Council. Iravani emphasized that Iran is prepared to exercise its inherent right to self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter, promising a decisive and proportionate response to any military aggression.
Iravani further warned that in such a scenario, all bases, facilities, and assets belonging to hostile forces in the Middle East would constitute legitimate targets for Iranian defensive measures. The envoy added that the United States would bear full and direct responsibility for any unforeseen and uncontrollable consequences resulting from further provocations.
