Rezaian, 39, a native Marin County, Calif., had been held in Iran’s Evin Prison for what the Fars News Agency in Iran, citing an Iranian Revolutionary Guard report Saturday, said were “attempts to help the U.S. Senate to advance its regime change plots in Iran”. Rezaian was the Post’s Tehran correspondent and was accredited to work in the country by the Iranian government.-Former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati of Flint, Michigan.
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FILE – In this June 2, 2015 file photo, Naghmeh Abedini holds a necklace with a photograph of her husband, Saeed Abedini, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Dozens of Iranians have been charged with US sanctions violations since 2008.
Iran has released four prisoners with dual Iranian-US nationality, the Tehran public prosecutor was quoted as saying, without giving further details. USA student Matthew Trevithick was released independently of the exchange on Saturday and already was on his way home. The U.S.is returning seven Iranians accused or convicted of violating economic sanctions against Iran.
In exchange, the USA side is either going to pardon or drop charges against seven Iranians they’ve been holding.
“We’re all very excited that hopefully within a matter of days we’ll be able to welcome them back to the United States”, Huffman said. “The United States also removed any Interpol red notices and dismissed any charges against 14 Iranians for whom it was assessed that extradition requests were unlikely to be successful”, the department said. Three other Iranian-Americans were released as part of the deal, which came as diplomats gathered in Vienna to announce the end of worldwide sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear programme.
“(They were released) in return for people that violated Iran sanctions, Iranians that were in prison here for violating those sanctions”, said Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush in New Hampshire yesterday.
But the family of one of the U.S prisoners received unofficial word from Iran that their relative was being released today, according to a person close to that family who spoke on condition the family not be identified.
“We thank everyone for your thoughts during this time”, Hekmati’s family said in a statement early Saturday afternoon. But, they cautioned, “There are still many unknowns”.
Trevithick, who recently turned 30 and is from Hingham, Mass., near Boston, went to Iran in September for a four-month, intensive-language program at a language center affiliated with Tehran University in order to work on his fluency in Dari, a language closely related to Farsi.
The officials did not tie the release directly to the nuclear talks and said they had not wanted the detained Americans to be “used as leverage” in the negotiations.
California-born Rezaian was detained in July 2014 and later convicted after a trial on charges of espionage and other crimes against national security.
Robert Levinson, who disappeared in Iran in 2007 while working for the CIA on an unapproved intelligence mission, wasn’t part of the deal.
But few believe that hundreds of protesters in Iran, where small demonstrations by schoolteachers or bus drivers have been quickly crushed before they even begin could gather in front of sensitive diplomatic outposts and clamber over their fences without some kind of official approval.
Levinson’s case was aggressively pursued, the officials said, adding that Iran has committed to continue cooperating in trying to determine Levinson’s whereabouts.
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At time of arrest, was running an orphanage in Iran.-Siamak Namazi, a businessman and the son of a politician from the shah’s era.
