The Biden administration secured the release of seven Americans imprisoned in Iran on Monday in exchange for President Joe Biden granting clemency to five Iranians held in the United States and unfreezing $6 billion of Iran's money.
Siamak Namazi; Emad Shargi; Morad Tahbaz; two Americans who want to remain private; Namazi’s mother, Effie Namazi; and Tahbaz’s wife, Vida Tahbaz are on their way to Washington, where they will be reunited with their families in the coming days with a brief stop in Doha, Qatar. Effie Namazi and Vida Tahbaz had been banned from traveling.
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This deal, known for weeks, secured the release of every American the administration has classified as wrongfully detained by Iran, a legal designation determined by the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act.
Biden granted clemency to five Iranians, two of whom had been convicted, while the other three were awaiting trial, as a part of the agreement. Mehrdad Ansari received a 63-month prison sentence in 2021 for obtaining equipment that could be used in missiles, electronic warfare, nuclear weapons, and other military gear. Kambiz Attar Kashani was sentenced to 30 months in prison in February after conspiring to export U.S. goods and technology to Iran illegally.
The three others Biden granted clemency to are Kaveh Lotfolah Afrasiabi, who was charged in 2021 with allegedly failing to register as a foreign agent on Iran's behalf while lobbying U.S. officials on matters such as nuclear policy; Amin Hasanzadeh, who was charged in 2019 with allegedly stealing engineering plans from his employer to send to Iran; and Reza Sarhangpour Kafrani, who was charged in 2021 over allegedly unlawfully exporting laboratory equipment to Iran.
Additionally, the U.S. has approved the movement of $6 billion of frozen Iranian money held in South Korea to a restricted account in Doha, where Tehran will be available to request money for “a very limited category of humanitarian transactions,” a senior administration official told reporters on Sunday evening.
Siamak Namazi was detained in 2015 and later sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges of having "relations with a hostile state" that were intentionally condemned, while Emad Shargi was detained in 2018 and also sentenced to a decade in prison in 2021 on unsubstantiated espionage charges. Morad Tahbaz was arrested in January 2018 during a crackdown on environmental activists and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
The initial reporting of Biden's deal incurred some criticism on Capitol Hill, mainly from Republicans, who argued the agreement would only encourage the taking of more Americans by Iran and other regimes.
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"I am always glad when Americans are released from captivity. However, this agreement will entice rogue regimes, like Iran, to take even more Americans hostage. The ayatollah and his henchmen are terrorists and truly represent a terrorist state," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said on X, formerly Twitter. Sen. John Thune (R-SD) said on Facebook, "The U.S. should be unrelenting in its efforts to bring detained Americans home, but Iran will now count pallets of ransom money, putting its leaders in a better position to develop a nuclear weapon and fund terrorists. And the price to release U.S. hostages will only go up."
Biden has agreed to several deals with foreign countries to secure the release of Americans held abroad. The U.S. got Trevor Reed and Brittney Griner back from Russia in separate deals for pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko and arms dealer Viktor Bout, though Paul Whelan and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich remain in Russian prisons on spurious espionage charges. American Mark Frerichs was freed in September 2022 after he was abducted by the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2020 in exchange for the release of Bashir Noorzai, a drug lord and member of the Taliban. Weeks after securing Frerichs's freedom, the administration secured the release of seven Americans from Venezuela, including five oil executives, in exchange for two relatives of President Nicolas Maduro jailed in the U.S. on drug convictions.