The project of arresting dual nationals continues; Masoud Mosaheb and Shahram Shirkhani are sentenced to 20 years in prison on charges of espionage.
While the situation of detained and imprisoned dual nationals in Iran is extremely worrying, the regime has now announced the arrest of more dual nationals and the issuance of long-term sentences to a number of others.
Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili announced on Tuesday, August 11, that there had been “four or five recent arrests” of dual nationals, and that two others had also been tried and sentenced to 10 years in prison each. He announced that Masoud Mosaheb, secretary general of the Iran-Austria Friendship Association, had been sentenced to 10 years in prison each on charges of “acting against national security” and spying for foreign countries, and another dual national, Shahram Shirkhani, had been sentenced to 10 years in prison each on similar charges.
This is while no information has been provided about the arrest and details of the trial of these individuals, and given the lack of fair trial in Iran and the Islamic Republic's previous actions to arrest citizens of multiple nationalities on charges of espionage for the purpose of extorting money from other countries, it seems that these two have also faced the same repeated charges.
On the other hand, in January last year, an informed source told VOA that the charges against Massoud Mosaheb, a 73-year-old Iranian-Austrian businessman, were "completely fabricated" and that he had not even had access to a defense attorney.
The Iranian regime has intensified its detention of foreign nationals and dual citizens in recent years. The U.S. State Department has repeatedly condemned the Islamic Republic’s arbitrary and unjustified detention of U.S. and foreign citizens, including dual Iranian nationals, by the regime and called for their immediate and unconditional release.
Source: Voice of America
