September 06, 2019
An Iranian woman whom Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif defended for years, saying she was being unfairly hounded by the Americans, has pleaded guilty in court to violating US sanctions laws and is now awaiting sentencing.
Zarif has been silent since Negar Ghodskani, 40, pleaded guilty in a Minneapolis courtroom August 9.
Zarif pointed out that she is the mother of a young child born after her arrest and has put her case on an equal footing with that of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, also a mother of a young child, who has been convicted of espionage in Iran. Zarif publicly suggested a few months ago that the two be exchanged.
Ghodskani was pregnant when arrested on a US warrant in Australia in 2017. She gave birth to a boy in custody in Adelaide, South Australia, while fighting extradition to the United States.
Once she was sent to the United States in July, she ceased fighting and decided to plead guilty to reduced charges. She now faces a maximum of five years in a US federal prison and a fine of $250,000. Her lawyer said they will ask for a sentence of time-served, which would mean she would be freed immediately.
Her attorney, Robert Richman, said she accepted the plea agreement “because she wanted to accept responsibility and be sentenced.” Zarif said she was innocent.
Ghodskani was based in Tehran as an employee of Fanavar Moj Khavar, a communications company whose principal customer was Iranian state broadcasting.
The US court heard that in 2009 she helped established a “front company,” Green Wave Telecommunication, in Malaysia and falsely represented herself to US companies to acquire export-controlled technology, including analog-to-digital converters and frequency synthesizers. One of the companies she bought from was in Minnesota, which is why her case was tried there.
Ghodskani moved to Australia with her husband on a skilled migration visa in 2012.
Her attempts to apply for bail after her arrest in Adelaide failed, forcing her to be separated from her newborn baby.
During a visit to New York in April, Zarif proposed a prisoner swap involving Ghodskani and Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
“Nobody talks about this lady in Australia who gave birth to a child in prison, whose child is growing up outside prison with the mother in prison,” Zarf said at an Asia Society event in Manhattan. “I put this offer on the table publicly now: exchange them.”
Ghodskani asked in the plea agreement to be sent back to Iran after she completes her sentence.
Her co-defendant, Alireza Jalali, 40, got no attention from Zarif. Jalali pled guilty in November 2017 and was sentenced to 18 months by the same judge handling Ghods-kani’s case. If she were to get the same sentence, she would be freed immediately as she has already spent more than that in detention.