Iranian Americans sentenced to prison for work with 'hostile' US government

A court in Tehran has sentenced an Iranian-American businessman and his father to 10 years in prison each on charges of collaborating with the “hostile” US government, in the latest case targeting Iranians with dual citizenship.

Iran’s Mizan Online news agency, which is affiliated with the country’s judiciary, reported on Tuesday that Siamak Namazi, and his father, Baquer, a former Unicef official, had been convicted of “collaborating with the hostile government of America”.

Nizar Zakka, a Lebanese technology expert, who has been held in Iran since September 2015 on spying charges, was also sentenced to 10 years on the same charges.

The US said it was “deeply concerned” by the news, and called for the Namazis’ immediate release.

“We join recent calls by international organizations and UN human rights experts for the immediate release of all US citizens unjustly detained in Iran, including Siamak and Baquer Namazi, so that they can return to their families,” said a state department spokesman, Mark Toner.

The Namazis are the latest of a string of dual nationals – including citizens from the UK and France – who have been imprisoned in what activists fear is a campaign to gather potential bargaining chips against western countries.

In January, as last year’s landmark nuclear deal was implemented, Iran released a group of Iranian-American nationals, including the Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, in exchange for Iranians held in America on charges such as violating economic sanctions. That prisoner swap may have emboldened Iran to pursue similar strategies with other countries, experts say.

Iranian officials privately say that their country has an obligation to secure the release of its nationals who have been jailed abroad for helping Tehran bypass sanctions – in some cases to obtain humanitarian supplies and medicine. But Tehran has been quiet about the identities of the prisoners it is keen to have released.

Ali Vaez, senior Iran analyst at International Crisis Group, said Siamak Namazi and his 80-year-old father were “victims of an over-zealous security apparatus and hostages in a heinous cold war between Iran and the United States”. Siamak Namazi was jailed with no explanation in October after visiting his family. His father was arrested in February.

The dual nationals targeted in the latest crackdown are believed to have been arrested by the hardline revolutionary guards, who run a parallel state in Iran in many areas, especially on intelligence issues.

Last year, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned against “infiltration” from outside into the country’s political system, and since then the word has become a code to imply the detainees have links with the west.

The Nazamis’ sentencing has coincided with the first anniversary of the enactment of the nuclear deal, and comes just weeks before the US presidential elections and months before Iran’s own presidential vote in May. Vaez said the timing appeared to be politically motivated.

“The Namazis’ case has a dual utility for the hardliners: they can accuse Rouhani and his entourage of abetting infiltration and at the same hamper further thawing of relations with Washington,” he told the Guardian.

Trita Parsi, the president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), said the sentencing was party of a broader strategy. “But using an 80-year-old man as a bargaining chip is beyond immoral,” he told the Guardian.

Parsi said there have been clear indications that Iran is mulling another prisoner swap. “There has been plenty of signals indicating that this is what they are looking for, and by them issuing this verdict, they are trying to force the other side to negotiate,” he said.

“It was clear that in the earlier prisoner swap that there were plenty of others that Iranians wanted released, some of them apparently may not be even in American prisons – there is indication that they are now trying to do the same by using people like Siamak and Baquer and others.”

Parsi said both Namazis have worked to strengthen civil society in Iran regardless of the political climate.

As well as working for Unicef, Baquer Namazi is credited with founding several environmental NGOs within Iran and promoted efforts to conserve the near-extinct Iranian cheetah.

Siamak Namazi, former public policy scholar at Woodrow Wilson Center, was a business consultant and a founder of Washington DC-based Future Alliance International, a consultancy company focusing on the risks of business ties with Iran.

“Siamak was so upset about the way sanctions were creating medicine shortages in Iran, he wrote a report which clearly analysed and showed exactly why there was a medicine shortage – and the conclusion was that sanctions was the triggering cause,” said Parsi. “That’s the man hardliners in Iran are now using as a bargaining chip.”

Parsi said Siamak Namazi’s prominence also made him a target for hardliners on both sides: a 2015 article in the Daily Beast, published shortly before his arrest, portrayed him as lobbying overseas for Iranian interests.

“He was falsely accused on the western side by completely reckless journalism – and now he has been imprisoned by the Iranians,” Parsi said.

Zakka, a Washington-based expert who has a US permanent residency, was arrested while attending an entrepreneurship conference in Tehran on an invitation by the Iranian government. He has since been accused of spying for the US.

Two other nationals, only identified with their initials, also received 10-year sentences, Mizan Online said, quoting an unnamed source. They were identified on social media as Farhad Abd-Saleh and Alireza Omidvar.