Five Americans are being returned to the United States following a prisoner swap with Iran.
Five Americans detained in Iran will be freed on Monday as part of a prisoner swap, according to the Iranian Foreign Ministry.
The detained U.S. citizens being repatriated include Siamak Namazi, Emad Shargi and Morad Tahbaz, as well as two others who asked that their identity not be made public.
Namazi, 51, is an oil executive and an Iranian-American dual nationalist. He was first detained in 2015 and was subsequently sentenced to 10 years in prison after a conviction on « collaboration with a hostile government » for his ties to the United States.
Shargi, a 58-year-old businessman, was detained without explanation in 2018 and released in 2019 before he was re-arrested in 2020 and handed down a 10-year sentence on an espionage charge.
Tahbaz, 67, is an Iranian-American conservationist who also holds British citizenship. He was arrested in 2018 and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken signed off on a blanket waiver of U.S. sanctions that paved the way for international banks to allow the transfer of roughly $6 billion in Iran oil revenue in exchange for Iran’s release of the five detained American citizens.
The $6 billion is coming from a restricted account in South Korea, where it was effectively frozen when the U.S. reinstated sanctions against Tehran after former President Donald Trump left the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Iran’s nuclear program and will be transferred to Qatar with restrictions on how Iran can spend the funds.
