Iran remains silent about 12 Iranians detained in the United States despite promise of prisoner swap
Iran appears to have shown little overt or covert support for the 12 Iranians accused or convicted of crimes in the United States. Officials in the Islamic Republic pledged four months ago to work toward another prisoner exchange with Washington.
The latest prisoner swap between the two longtime enemies took place on December 7, when Iran released Xiu Wang, a Chinese American and academic researcher, in exchange for the release of Iranian scientist Massoud Soleimani. The exchange took place in Zurich, with Swiss mediation.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted two days later that Tehran was ready for a “comprehensive prisoner exchange” with Washington. A day later, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohsen Baharvand said there were about 20 more Iranians Tehran was seeking to release from U.S. prisons.
Brian Hook, the US State Department's special representative for Iran, says there has been a relentless effort over the past four months to free Americans who have been unjustly imprisoned on trumped-up charges: These individuals include Michael White, a retired US Navy officer, and three dual-citizen Iranian Americans – Siamak and Bagher Namazi, and environmental activist Morad Tahbaz.
U.S. government officials have increased the urgency of their call for the release of Americans as the coronavirus pandemic in Iran worsens and spreads to the country’s prisons. Iranian authorities released Michael White from prison on March 19 after he showed symptoms of the virus, but they are not allowing him and other Americans to leave Iran.
Washington has also pressured Iran to shed light on the whereabouts of Robert Levinson, a retired FBI officer who disappeared in Iran in 2007. President Trump's administration said last month that Levinson was believed to be long dead.
Iran has not said anything about the release of Iranians imprisoned in the United States since early December, nor has it mentioned them by name.
The Voice of America Persian Service has compiled the names of 12 Iranians who are either imprisoned in the United States or on parole through the request of a lawyer or a review of the Department of Justice's records.
Seven of these individuals are Iranian-Americans (dual citizens), and five others are Iranian citizens, three of whom have permanent residency in the United States. The Iranian-Americans include Mansour Arbab-Sir, Behrouz Behrouzian, Mehdi (Eddie) Hashemi, Ahmadreza Mohammadi Doostdar, Hassan Ali Moshirfatemi, and a couple named Sadr Emad Vaez and Pouran Azad. Milad Rezaei Kalantari, Behzad Pourqanad, and three individuals with permanent residency in the United States named Majid Ghorbani, Amin Hassanzadeh, and Ali Sadr Hasheminejad are the five Iranians in this case.
Of these 12 Iranians, five – namely Arbab Sir, Behrouzian, Kalantari, Mohammadi Doostdar, and Pourqanad – are serving their sentences in federal prisons after being convicted of various crimes, and Hassanzadeh is in custody awaiting trial.
Five others, including Azad, Emad Vaez, Hashemi, Hasheminejad and Moshir Fatemi, are free on bail with a restraining order pending a court ruling. Majid Ghorbani was released from prison earlier this month due to ill health and moved to his daughter's home in Orange County, California. The court has issued a restraining order until February of next year.
Lawyers for some of these 12 people told VOA they had not heard anything about their clients from officials in either country.
"I have not heard anything about Pourqanad being part of a prisoner exchange," James Newman, Behzad Pourqanad's lawyer, wrote in an email.
Jim Sledry, a former U.S. congressman from Kansas who spent months working with former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson to help the U.S. government's efforts to secure a prisoner swap on December 7, told VOA he had heard nothing new from his Iranian contacts.
Sledari had several conversations with Majid Takht-Ravanchi, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations, before the latest prisoner exchange, and met with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif at the UN headquarters in New York last September.
In a statement to VOA, the former New Mexico governor said he and the Richardson Center for Global Engagement have been working for more than a year and a half to bring Michael White back, but he did not elaborate on the Iranians who might be part of a swap.
The Swiss embassy in Washington, whose country protects American interests in Iran, also declined to comment on the matter.
According to Sledry, the Islamic Republic is not interested in working to free Iranian Americans. In recent years, imprisoned Iranian-American Zavik Zargarian chose to remain in the United States after his release.
Source: Voice of America
