Four Americans freed by Tehran as part of a prisoner swap include Iranian-American journalist Jason Rezaian, the Tehran bureau chief for The Washington Post, who was arrested in 2014 on espionage charges and spent over 500 days in jail, despite pleas and protests by the USA government, the Post, family and friends.
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USA officials have said they are not sure he is still alive, but said that Iran has “committed to continue cooperating with the United States to determine the whereabouts of…”
The move is being hailed by some as a sign of closer and more trusting relations between the two countries.
The publisher of The Washington Post confirmed Rezaian was released in the prisoner swap and had left the country with his wife.
The fourth man, Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari, about whom little is known, is not among them, a U.S. official said.
A fifth prisoner, the American student Matthew Trevithick, was released separately from the other four on Saturday, a US official said.
The Post reported that the flight out of Iran was delayed because Rezaian’s mother Mary and wife Yeganeh, who also were on the airplane, initially did not appear on the flight manifest.
Obama spoke from the White House on Sunday, one day after the United Nations certified that Iran had curbed its nuclear program as promised.
Huffman said the freed prisoners are expected to be transported to a USA military hospital in Germany for medical evaluation.
“We can confirm that our detained USA citizens have been released and that those who wished to depart Iran have left”. The Iranian plane took off and headed back to Iran on Sunday morning, around the same time the American detainees left Tehran.
Iranian-American Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian pictured while covering a press confere … “But we remain in hopeful anticipation until Amir is in our arms”.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) ruled on Saturday that Iran had abided by last year’s agreement with six world powers to curtail its nuclear program, triggering the end of sanctions.
Trevithick’s release was not part of the prisoner swap, but USA officials did “indicate to Foreign Minister Zarif that it’d be important for them to try to resolve some of the other cases of Americans detained in the context of this ‘deal, ‘” a senior administration official told CNN.
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Iranian state television said the seven Iranians – Nader Modanlou, Baharam Mechanic, Khosrow Afghahi, Arash Ghahreman, Tooraj Faridi, Nima Golestaneh, and Ali Saboonchi – “will be freed today”.
