this time apparently because his sons promote concerts in the Persian Gulf by Iranian-American pop stars out of favor with the regime.
The story of 75-year-old Hossein Ghanbarzadeh Vahedi was previously unknown. Neither he nor the US government had previously revealed it. It came to light only because a US consular cable about his escape from Iran on horseback was reported to Washington in one of the cables published this week by Wikileaks.
Vahedi decided to visit relatives and his parents’ graves in Tehran in May 2008. But he was then prevented from leaving Iran. While he was not jailed, his passport was confiscated when he went to the airport to leave and his appeals were ignored.
Vahedi then decided he had no hope but to try to escape. Despite his age, he mounted a horse, hired two guides, and began a perilous 14-hour overnight climb across the freezing mountains of northwestern Iran into eastern Turkey.
On January 9, 2009, Vahedi turned up at the consular section of the US embassy in Ankara and asked for assistance. To the evident astonishment of American diplomats, Vahedi appeared in good health, but for “a few aches and pains” caused by a fall, the consular cable reported.
The cable was one of those discovered in the Wikileaks stack by The Guardian of Britain.
The cable says there appeared to be two reasons for the treatment meted out to Vahedi, who left Iran originally at the time of the revolution. One reason was called “simple extortion.” it was made clear, Vahedi told the US consulate, that $150,000 would facilitate his departure.
Second, Vahedi said, Iranian government officials told him that he should tell his LA-based sons to stop promoting concerts in the Persian Gulf Arab states by Persian pop singers who are considered “anti-regime.” The authorities have shown intense sensitivity in recent years to such concerts and have taken numerous initiatives to try to stop the concerts or prevent Iranians from getting to them.
Vahedi said he told his interrogators that his sons were typical “strong, independent” Americans who would not heed the demands of the Iranian state.
Vahedi opted to escape on a mountain trail into Turkey. “At one point during the 14-hour ride, the escorts had to physically hug him to keep him warm,” the cable recounted. “As an inexperienced rider, hours into the climb, Vahedi lost his concentration and fell off the horse, tumbling into the woods. He told [diplomats] that at this point he really believed he was going to die by freezing to death on a mountainside.”
Even when he reached the other side of the border, Vahedi’s ordeal was not over. Turkish officials declared him an illegal immigrant and ordered his deportation back to Iran. But US embassy officials had a quiet word with the Turkish Foreign Ministry and he was allowed to fly home.