© Reuters. U.S. and Iranian flags are shown in this illustration from September 8, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
DUBAI (Reuters) – The United States and Iran will each release five people they are holding under a swap deal that also includes the transfer of $6 billion in unfrozen Iranian assets from South Korea.
The following are the U.S. citizens detained in Iran who will be released under the deal:
SIAMAK NAMAZI
Siamak Namazi, 51, a businessman with dual U.S. and Iranian citizenship, was arrested by the Revolutionary Guard in 2015 while visiting his family in Tehran. Months later, his ailing father Baquer was arrested after returning to Iran to visit his imprisoned son. Both were sentenced to ten years in prison in 2016 for alleged espionage and collaboration with the US government.
Baquer Namazi, a former Iranian provincial governor and former UNICEF official who also has dual citizenship, was placed under house arrest for medical reasons in 2018 and left Iran for medical treatment in 2022.
EMAD SHARGHI
In 2017, Sharghi and his wife moved to Iran from the United States. The Iranian-American businessman, 59, was first arrested in 2018 while working for Saravan Holding, a technology investment company. He was released on bail after eight months and a Revolutionary Court cleared him of espionage and security charges, but his travel ban remained in place.
In November 2020, he was summoned by another Revolutionary Court, which sentenced him to ten years in prison for espionage. He was not initially detained, but Iranian media reported he was arrested while attempting to flee Iran in January 2021.
MORAD TAHBAZ
Tahbaz, a 67-year-old Iranian-American environmentalist who also has British citizenship, was arrested in 2018. He was sentenced to ten years in prison in 2019 for “assembly and collusion against Iran’s national security” and “contacts with the hostile US government … for the purpose of espionage”.
The fourth and fifth prisoners have not been identified. It is not clear how many U.S. citizens are imprisoned in Iran because families and the U.S. government often do not want to publicize the cases in hopes of quietly securing their release.
IRANIAN prisoners in the USA
The five Iranians set to be released by the US are Mehrdad Moin-Ansari, Kambiz Attar-Kashani, Reza Sarhangpour-Kafrani, Amin Hassanzadeh and Kaveh Afrasiabi, according to Iranian officials. Two Iranian officials said Afrasiabi would remain in the United States.
Iran has been calling for the release of Iranians imprisoned in the USA for years. More than a dozen Iranian prisoners are being held in the United States, mostly for “violating U.S. sanctions against Iran,” an Iranian judicial source told Reuters.
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