it is holding prisoner, a US congressmen is complaining that Iran is one of several countries that won’t take back its nationals that the United States has already let out of prison.
Iran has been on a campaign in recent months to portray the United States as a cruel monster that has kidnaped innocent Iranians and detains them in dungeon-like conditions.
Just last week, Hassan Qashqavi, the deputy foreign minister for consular and expatriate affairs, charged that the United States is holding more than 60 Iranian nationals in prisons, including 11 held on purely political grounds and without any proof against them.
Qashqavi named only three of the 11. In the past, Iran has spoken of 10 Iranians that the Americans had kidnaped. Five of those are actually in other countries, including one who had been freed by France and allowed to return home to Iran, raising questions about the quality of the research work done by the Foreign Ministry.
As Qashqavi complained of the Americans incarcerating innocent Iranians, Rep. Ted Poe, Republican of Texas, complained that the Islamic Republic was refusing to take back almost 4,000 Iranians who have been released from American prisons and whom the United States seeks to deport back to Iran.
Qashqavi said nothing about those 4,000 Iranians that Iran will not accept back. He did, however, boast that his office had won freedom over the past year for 778 Iranian nationals detained in 25 other countries.
Poe introduced legislation that would bar the issuance of diplomatic visas to officials of countries that refuse to accept their nationals ordered deported by the United States. It is standard American practice to order deportation of foreign-born men and women convicted of felonies after they complete their sentences in the United States.
The Islamic Republic, however, refuses to accept those deportees and Poe complains the United States is stuck with them. The single biggest offender by far is Cuba, which a few decades ago emptied many of its prisons of criminals and sent them by boat to Florida. Iranian felons are the seventh largest nationality group of felons freed inside the United States. Under Supreme Court decisions, they cannot be kept in prison after their terms are up.
The three prisoners held in the United States who were named by Qashqavi are Nosratollah Tajik, who is living at his home in England, while the United States seeks to extradite him to face charges of trying to smuggle night vision devices from the United States to Iran, Amir-Hossain Ardebili, who was extradited from Georgia and is serving a five-year prison term after pleading guilty to smuggling charges, and Shahrzad Mir-Qolikhan, who came to the United States willingly in the expectation of receiving a suspended sentence on smuggling charges but ran into a buzz saw of complications and is now serving a five-year prison term.
Poe said that altogether there are 138,000 free felons in the United States whose countries have not accepted their return. They include 49,966 from Cuba, 35,230 from China, 11,773 from India, 9,699 from Jamaica, 7,337 from Pakistan, 4,771 from Somalia, 3,702 from Iran, 3,112 from Trinidad, 2,615 from Bangladesh and about 9,800 from the rest of the world.