Detained US citizen and former UNICEF official Baquer Namazi has been allowed to leave Iran. (Twitter)
AFP, Washington
Published: 05 October ,2022: 09:31 AM GSTUpdated: 05 October ,2022: 09:56 AM GST
Detained US citizen Baquer Namazi has been allowed to leave Iran and his son has been granted furlough from prison, the State Department said Wednesday, confirming their release.
Namazi, a former UNICEF official, was detained in February 2016 when the 85-year-old went to Iran to press for the release of his son Siamak, who had been arrested in October of the previous year.
The United States has been pressing for the release of these two men and two other Americans amid efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major Western powers.
“Wrongfully detained US citizen Baquer Namazi has been permitted to depart Iran, and his son Siamak, also wrongfully detained, has been granted furlough from prison,” a State Department spokesperson told AFP.
It added that the older Namazi “was unjustly detained in Iran and then not permitted to leave the county after serving his sentence, despite his repeated requirement for urgent medical attention.”
“We understand that the lifting of the travel ban and his son’s furlough were related to his medical requirement.”
The United Nations said last week that the pair had been allowed to leave Iran, after an appeal from its Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Both were convicted of espionage in October 2016 and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Baquer Namazi was released on medical leave in 2018 and had been serving his sentence under house arrest.
At least two other American citizens are currently held in Iran.
Businessman Emad Sharqi was sentenced last year to 10 years in prison for espionage, and environmentalist Morad Tahbaz, who is also a British national, was arrested in 2018 and released on bail in July.
A drive to salvage the 2015 nuclear deal resumed in late November last year, after talks were suspended in June as Iran elected ultra-conservative President Ebrahim Raisi.
The 2015 deal -- agreed by Iran, the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany -- offered Tehran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.
But the United States unilaterally withdrew in 2018 under president Donald Trump and reimposed biting economic sanctions, prompting Tehran to begin rolling back on its commitments.
On Sunday, the United States rejected Iranian reports that Tehran’s release of US citizens would lead to the unfreezing of Iranian funds abroad.
“With the finalization of negotiations between Iran and the United States to release the prisoners of both countries, $7 billion of Iran’s blocked resources will be released,” the state news agency IRNA said.
But the State Department dismissed any such link as “categorically false.”
Billions of dollars in Iranian funds have been frozen in a number of countries -- notably China, South Korea and Japan -- since the US reimposed sanctions.
Iranian-American, 85, held in Tehran for six years leaves Iran
By Parisa Hafezi, Arshad Mohammed
DUBAI (Reuters) - Baquer Namazi, an 85-year-old Iranian American who was jailed in Iran on spying charges that the United States called baseless, arrived in Muscat on Wednesday after Iran allowed him to leave for medical treatment, an Omani government office said on Twitter.
Earlier, a lawyer for the Namazi family, Jared Genser, said Namazi was on his way to Muscat “after more than 6.5 years of illegal detention in Iran”, referring to the time Namazi was jailed as well as when he was out of prison but effectively barred from leaving Iran.
“After a brief transit, he will travel on to Abu Dhabi and then undergo a carotid endarterectomy at the Cleveland Clinic (there) to clear out a severe blockage to his left internal carotid artery (ICA), which puts him at very high risk for a stroke,” Genser added in a statement.
His departure from Iran was first reported by Iran’s state media, publishing a video showing him boarding a private plane accompanied by a man in Omani national dress, but it did not say where he was headed.
The video showed him struggling to climb the stairs to board the plane, on which the light blue insignia of the Royal Air Force of Oman could be seen.
Namazi, a former official with the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF, holds U.S. and Iranian citizenship and was one of four Iranian Americans, including his son Siamak, detained in Iran in recent years or barred from leaving the country
Namazi was convicted in 2016 of “collaboration with a hostile government” and jailed for 10 years. Iranian authorities released him on medical grounds in 2018 and closed his case in 2020, commuting his sentence to time served.
However, they had effectively barred him from leaving until Saturday, when the United Nations said he would be allowed to leave for medical treatment.
His son Siamak, 51, who was also convicted of “collaboration with a hostile government” in 2016, was released from Tehran’s Evin prison Saturday on a one-week, renewable furlough after nearly seven years in detention.
The U.S. government has described the charges against both as baseless.
In the statement released by the family’s lawyer, Babak Namazi, Baquer Namazi’s son, voiced gratitude for his father’s departure from Iran but sorrow at his brother Siamak’s inability to leave the country.
“While getting my father out of Iran is incredibly important, today is also bittersweet. My brother Siamak as well as Americans Emad (Shargi) and Morad Tahbaz remain detained in Iran and our nightmare will not be over until our entire family (and) the other Americans are reunited with their families,” he said.
The other U.S. citizens detained in Iran include environmentalist Tahbaz, 67, who also has British nationality, and businessman Shargi, 58.
“Today is a good day for the Namazi family, but the work is far from over. We now need the United States and Iran to act expeditiously to reach an agreement that will finally bring all of the American hostages home,” Genser, the family’s lawyer, said, adding that Baquer Namazi will immediately go to the hospital upon his arrival in Abu Dhabi.
It was not immediately clear why Iran had allowed Baquer Namazi to leave the country and Siamak Namazi to be furloughed from prison.
Iranian Americans, whose U.S. citizenship is not recognized by Tehran, are often pawns between the two nations, now at odds over whether to revive a fraying 2015 pact under which Iran limited its nuclear program in return for sanctions relief.
Iran is also grappling with the biggest show of opposition to its clerical authorities since 2019 with dozens of people killed in unrest across the country ignited by the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman.
By Parisa Hafezi, Arshad Mohammed
DUBAI (Reuters) - Baquer Namazi, an 85-year-old Iranian American who was jailed in Iran on spying charges that the United States called baseless, arrived in Muscat on Wednesday after Iran allowed him to leave for medical treatment, an Omani government office said on Twitter.
Earlier, a lawyer for the Namazi family, Jared Genser, said Namazi was on his way to Muscat “after more than 6.5 years of illegal detention in Iran”, referring to the time Namazi was jailed as well as when he was out of prison but effectively barred from leaving Iran.
“After a brief transit, he will travel on to Abu Dhabi and then undergo a carotid endarterectomy at the Cleveland Clinic (there) to clear out a severe blockage to his left internal carotid artery (ICA), which puts him at very high risk for a stroke,” Genser added in a statement.
His departure from Iran was first reported by Iran’s state media, publishing a video showing him boarding a private plane accompanied by a man in Omani national dress, but it did not say where he was headed.
The video showed him struggling to climb the stairs to board the plane, on which the light blue insignia of the Royal Air Force of Oman could be seen.
Namazi, a former official with the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF, holds U.S. and Iranian citizenship and was one of four Iranian Americans, including his son Siamak, detained in Iran in recent years or barred from leaving the country
Namazi was convicted in 2016 of “collaboration with a hostile government” and jailed for 10 years. Iranian authorities released him on medical grounds in 2018 and closed his case in 2020, commuting his sentence to time served.
However, they had effectively barred him from leaving until Saturday, when the United Nations said he would be allowed to leave for medical treatment.
His son Siamak, 51, who was also convicted of “collaboration with a hostile government” in 2016, was released from Tehran’s Evin prison Saturday on a one-week, renewable furlough after nearly seven years in detention.
The U.S. government has described the charges against both as baseless.
In the statement released by the family’s lawyer, Babak Namazi, Baquer Namazi’s son, voiced gratitude for his father’s departure from Iran but sorrow at his brother Siamak’s inability to leave the country.
“While getting my father out of Iran is incredibly important, today is also bittersweet. My brother Siamak as well as Americans Emad (Shargi) and Morad Tahbaz remain detained in Iran and our nightmare will not be over until our entire family (and) the other Americans are reunited with their families,” he said.
The other U.S. citizens detained in Iran include environmentalist Tahbaz, 67, who also has British nationality, and businessman Shargi, 58.
“Today is a good day for the Namazi family, but the work is far from over. We now need the United States and Iran to act expeditiously to reach an agreement that will finally bring all of the American hostages home,” Genser, the family’s lawyer, said, adding that Baquer Namazi will immediately go to the hospital upon his arrival in Abu Dhabi.
It was not immediately clear why Iran had allowed Baquer Namazi to leave the country and Siamak Namazi to be furloughed from prison.
Iranian Americans, whose U.S. citizenship is not recognized by Tehran, are often pawns between the two nations, now at odds over whether to revive a fraying 2015 pact under which Iran limited its nuclear program in return for sanctions relief.
Iran is also grappling with the biggest show of opposition to its clerical authorities since 2019 with dozens of people killed in unrest across the country ignited by the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman.
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