February 26, 2021
Iran has commuted the sentence of an ailing 84-year-old Iranian-American but barred him from leaving, his son in the US has announced.
Baquer Namazi, a former UNICEF official, was detained in February 2016 when he traveled back to Iran after the October 2015 arrest in Tehran of his son Siamak, a businessman. Father and son were sentenced in October 2016 to 10 years in prison each on charges of espionage. The father was furloughed indefinitely for medical reasons in 2018.
Siamak’s brother, Babak, who still lives in the US, revealed February 22 that the Iranian Judiciary commuted the sentence of his father to time served a year ago based on his serious medical problems.
“As you can imagine, we were overjoyed that finally the nightmare may be over for my father and he can leave Iran to get the much-needed medical attention and procedures and to spend what little time he has left with his grandchildren,” Babak Namazi told an online news conference.
Babak said his father went on a “wild goose chase” despite ill health to obtain a new passport to leave Iran but that the Pasdaran had placed a travel ban on him. “It is beyond outrageous that Iran continues to play with my father’s life,” he said.
“My family expects that President Biden and his administration will not make concessions or deals with Iran that do not include — and, indeed, requires a precondition — the release of my father and Siamak,” he said.
Baquer Namazi requires a stent for the main artery to his brain, which is 80 percent blocked and puts him at grave risk of a stroke, said the family’s lawyer, Jared Genser.
Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, announced the day before Babak spoke that the releases of Americans held in Iran would be a “significant priority” of the Biden Administration. Five citizens and one green card holder are detained.
“We intend to very directly communicate with the Iranians about the complete and utter outrage, the humanitarian catastrophe that is the unjust, unlawful detention of American citizens in Iran,” Sullivan told CBS News’ “Face the Nation.”
Iran then angrily said it was not in any talks with the Americans about prisoners or anything else. But Sullivan did not say the US was in talks with Iran, only that it was in communication with Iran. Iran later acknowledged it had received communications from Washington through the Swiss embassy in Tehran related to prisoners.
Babak Namazi told his online news conference, “My family expects that President Biden and his administration will not make concessions or deals with Iran that do not include, that indeed requires [as] a precondition the release of my father and Siamak”