Iranian authorities tried to prevent the Iranian wife of Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian from leaving the country with him, his brother Ali Rezaian told CNN.
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Iranian authorities held the wife and mother of journalist Jason Rezaian without telephones for hours in a separate room at a Tehran airport Sunday before finally agreeing under US pressure to let them leave along with prisoners released in an exchange with the U.S.
In a Monday, Jan. 18, 2016 photo provided by the Hekmati family, the family and U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Flint Township, Mich., meet with former Iran prisoner Amir Hekmati, second from right, at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Landstuhl, Germany.
Hemati was part of an exchange deal that will see the US release six Iranian-Americans and one Iranian who had been sentenced to prison or awaiting trial for violating sanctions or trade embargoes, according to officials, who stressed that none of the prisoners were accused of terrorism or violent crimes.
Pastor Saeed Abedini was detained in 2012, alleged to have organized underground Christian worship in Iran.
The American Center for Law and Justice, a Washington-based group dedicated to protecting religious and constitutional freedoms, reported that Abedini was tortured during his imprisonment and beaten by fellow prisoners in June. “I also want to thank everybody at The Post and my colleagues in other media as well, as well as everybody in the USA government who played an important role in my release”. Hekmati’s family members are with them. We told him we’ve been talking about him for 545 days.
They wrote in an internal memo to Post staff: “Asked how he was doing, he said, ‘I’m a hell of a lot better than I was 48 hours ago.’ He said that he feels better than he did several months ago and that his mind is sharp”.
Hekmati thanked U.S. President Barack Obama, Congress and his other supporters, reserving special thanks for the U.S. Marine Corps.
“We will be committed to the fact that our nuclear program is peaceful and will never deviate to weapons”, he told Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in a meeting in Tehran, the Mehr News Agency reported.
The prisoner swop came as the United Nations nuclear watchdog confirmed Iran had put a nuclear bomb beyond its immediate reach and the USA and European Union lifted their most draconian economic sanctions.
Iran’s Gulf Arab adversaries were silent on news of the nuclear deal’s implementation, in what was perhaps a sign of unease at the rapprochement. Matthew Trevithick A fifth American who was detained in Iran, Matthew Trevithick, left the country on a civilian plane Saturday, a senior White House official said. “They had said that Yegi had to come along with Jason, and they got her out”. By then, American and Iranian teams in Geneva were working hard on the details of the swap.
Brett McGurk, a special US presidential envoy tweeted a photo of Jason Rezaian after the American journalist landed in Geneva following his release by Iran.
The negotiations over the American detainees grew out of the Iran nuclear talks.
But Kerry said the successful talks over prisoners and nuclear matters raise the prospects of more U.S.-Iranian cooperation on other matters.
Bahram Mecanic and Khosrow Afghahi were also freed.
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Now the agreement between the United States and Iran calls for Iranian officials to “continue cooperating with the United States to determine the whereabouts of Robert Levinson”, a US official said.
