Daughter of US Citizen Jailed by Iran Says She No Longer Trusts US Efforts

Morad Tahbaz, an Iranian-American who also holds British citizenship, served five years of a 10-year sentence after being convicted of espionage.

He was briefly placed under house arrest with an electronic tag in March 2022 when two other nationals with dual nationality, including British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, were allowed to leave Iran.

In July, his lawyer said he had been released on bail, but his daughter said he was now back in jail.

“I think it’s hard to hold on to hope since Biden took office that our loved ones are a priority and then see no action -” Tara Tahbaz told Reuters in Madrid during a visit to the United States. United to see relatives.

She said her family and relatives of two other American prisoners in Iran hoped Biden would give them time to expand on their stories at a meeting in Washington scheduled for next month.

She said her father, now 67, suffered from prostate cancer and had COVID-19 three times in prison.

The United States has urged Iran to release Tahbaz and two other citizens, Emad Shargi and Siamak Namazi, all of whom are jailed on espionage charges that Washington says are baseless.

US State Department spokesman Vedant Patel tweeted on Saturday: “We reiterate our call on Iran to end its unjust detention of foreign nationals for use as political leverage and to release American citizens Emad Shargi, Morad Tahbaz and Siamak Namazi to leave.”

Namazi, an oil executive, was jailed for 10 years in 2016 for espionage and collaborating with the US government. Shargi was sentenced to 10 years in 2021.