Freed American calls on Biden to end Iran’s ‘vile path’ of keeping foreigners imprisoned

One of the five Americans freed from Iranian custody after nearly eight years has urged US President Joe Biden to end the Islamic Republic’s “longstanding” practice of keeping foreign nationals in jail.

In a statement after being released from the notorious Evin prison in Tehran, Siamak Namazi, a dual national and the longest-held of the five detainees for 2,898 days, called for a different approach to deter what he called state-sponsored hostage taking.

“Over the past 44 years, the Iranian regime has mastered the nasty game of caging innocent Americans and other foreign nationals, and commercialising their freedom,” he said after flying from Tehran to Doha, calling Evin prison a “dystopian United Nations of Hostages”, reports Guardian.

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“We must urgently channel the grievous pain of the victims of this wickedness into the kind of measures that would upend the cost-benefit calculations of Tehran’s foul business. For if we keep this vile path to profit free of risk and toll, this venal regime will keep treading on it. Again and again.

“It is only if the free world finally agrees to collectively impose draconian consequences on those who use human lives as mere bargaining chips, that the Iranian regime and its ilk will be compelled to make different choices. Sadly, until then, we can anticipate more Americans and others falling victim to state hostage-taking.”

Prisoners in exchange for access to funds

Siamak Namazi is one of the five American detainees who was freed on Monday in exchange for a deal to allow Iran to access $6 billion of previously frozen oil revenues.

The US official said that the money involved in the deal would be limited for use on “humanitarian transactions” involving food, medicine and medical supplies, and agricultural products.

“This is not a payment of any kind,” a senior administration official said in a statement.

“No funds enter Iran, nor do any funds get paid to Iranian companies or entities. At bottom, these are Iranian funds – payment made by South Korea to Iran for purchases of oil years ago, including during the last administration – moving from one restricted account in Korea to another restricted account in Qatar.”

The funds were frozen in 2019 as a result of ramped-up sanctions imposed by the Trump administration as part of its policy of “maximum pressure” on Tehran. They related to oil bought from Iran by South Korea the previous year under a sanctions-waiver scheme.

(With inputs from agencies)

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