Iranian prisoners in US Archives - Iran News Daily

Zarif: Iranian Scientist Jailed in US Returning Home

reporter 1222 — Tue, 02 Jun 2020 10:09:46 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Tuesday that a plane had taken off from the US carrying scientist Sirous Asgari after his apparent release from a US prison.

“Good news, a plane carrying Dr. Sirous Asgari has taken off from America. Congratulations to his wife and family,” Zarif wrote in a post on his Instagram account.

Asgari was accused by a US court in 2016 of stealing trade secrets while on an academic visit to Ohio, but the 59-year-old scientist from Tehran’s Sharif University of Technology was acquitted in November.

The academic told British newspaper The Guardian in March that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency was keeping him in a detention center in Louisiana without basic sanitation and refusing to let him return to Iran despite his exoneration.

The US agency database still listed Asgari as being detained in the state of Mississippi, AFP reported.

On Monday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyed Abbas Mousavi said Asgari’s case was closed and that he was likely to return to the Islamic Republic within two or three days.

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Comprehensive prisoner swap could happen

reporter 1222 — Tue, 10 Dec 2019 06:31:24 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Iranian government officials have expressed the Islamic Republic’s readiness for a comprehensive prisoner swap with the United States after each freed a prisoner on Saturday.

“After getting our hostage back this week, fully ready for comprehensive prisoner swap”, the Iranian foreign minister tweeted on Monday.

However, he noted that the ball was now in the US court.

Zarif’s remarks came two days after Iran and the US exchanged prisoners as part of a swap.

Iran released Xiyue Wang, an American citizen who had been sentenced to 10 years in jail in Iran on spying charges, while the United States freed Iranian stem cell scientist Massoud Soleimani. He had been facing charges of violating US sanctions against Tehran.

Iran’s government spokesman Ali Rabiei also said Monday that Tehran was open to more prisoner swaps with Washington, while stressing that the weekend exchange was not the result of formal negotiations with the US.

US President Donald Trump thanked Iran for what he called a “very fair negotiation”.

But the Iranian government dismissed the idea that it was the result of any negotiations between the two countries, which have not had diplomatic ties since 1980, according to AFP.

“This was only exchange and… regarding exchanges we are ready to act but there are no negotiations,” spokesman Ali Rabiei said on state television.

“Negotiations or any kind of talks” can only take place “within the framework of the 5+1 and after America has refrained from sanctions and economic terrorism,” he said.

The P5+1 is the group of countries that agreed on a nuclear deal with Iran in 2015 – the five veto-wielding permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany.

The nuclear deal has been hanging by a thread since last year when Trump unilaterally withdrew from the accord and began reimposing sanctions on the Islamic republic.

The Iranian spokesman said the prisoner swap came despite a US rejection of an offer Tehran made to Washington last year for an exchange of all detainees.

A few months ago, he said, Iran had received a message from “a former US official” saying the Americans were ready to make an exchange.

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Soleimani arrival after a year in captivity

reporter 1222 — Sun, 08 Dec 2019 08:32:47 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Soleimani arrived at Tehran Mehrabad airport on Saturday evening after he was released by the US in a prisoner swap, he was welcomed by his family members and Iranian officials upon his arrival.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif accompanied the released scientist from Zurich where the swap took place.

The Iranian foreign minister said in a tweet earlier in the day that the top scholar, along with Xiyue Wang — a Chinese-born US citizen who had been sentenced to 10 years in prison for espionage in Iran in 2017 — had been delivered to the Swiss officials and would “be joining their families shortly.”

Speaking to reporters at the airport, Zarif said he is “very happy that on National Students’ Day, one of the greatest professors and scientists of our country is returned home.”

He added that Dr. Soleimani had been taken hostage by the American forces for 14 months “without any reason.”

The US “arrested a university professor with 500 scientific articles without any reason” after it invited him and gave him a visa “to do research at the highest US scientific institute.”

The top Iranian diplomat emphasized that Dr. Soleimani had been repeatedly offered by the United States to stay in the US instead of returning home but the “patriotic professor” turned down their request.

Zarif also thanked Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, the Judiciary and security bodies for agreeing to the Iranian scientist’s swap with an American who was held in Iran on espionage charges and was pardoned based on “Islamic compassion” and returned to the US.

“Over the past 40 years, the US has been trying to hinder Iran’s scientific progress. The US’ maximum pressure has been pursuing such a goal,” he said.

Zarif added that the science, progress, and technology that the Iranian nation has managed to acquire trough its self-reliance are the “biggest thorn in the side of those who do not want this nation’s prosperity.”

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Masoud Soleimani Delivered to Iranians

reporter 1222 — Sat, 07 Dec 2019 12:19:07 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Iranian university professor, Masoud Soleimani, who was jailed by the US authorities, was delivered to Iranian officials in Switzerland in the early hours of Saturday.

In a tweet on the same day, Iranian FM Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote, “Glad that Professor Massoud Soleimani and Mr. Xiyue Wang will be joining their families shortly. Many thanks to all engaged, particularly the Swiss government.”

Masoud Soleimani, a distinguished professor at Tarbiat Modares University in Tehran, was detained by the FBI on 7 October 2018, and the US authorities did not make any statements on his case since then.

He was arrested by the FBI upon his arrival in the US on unclear charges. The trial of hematology and stem cell researcher was postponed twice over the past nine months while his innocence was proven by his lawyers.

Soleimani was accused of bypassing US sanctions by purchasing vials containing a human growth factor — a substance readily available on the market and not subject to Washington’s embargos.

The 49-year-old professor and biomedical researcher at Tehran’s Tarbiat Modares University is reportedly suffering from several health problems that have been aggravated during his incarceration.

PressTV and Al-Alam press both contributed to this report as well.

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