Detained US citizen Baquer Namazi leaves Iran after six years

 Baquer Namazi, a US citizen held in Iran for more than six years —  first in prison and then under house arrest — has left the country to receive urgent medical treatment in the United Arab Emirates, his family said in a statement Wednesday. 

Video from Iranian state media showed Namazi, 85, boarding a Royal Oman Air Force plane to Muscat on Wednesday. After a short layover in the Omani capital, Namazi will continue on to Abu Dhabi, where he will undergo surgery at the Cleveland Clinic to clear out "a severe blockage" to an artery that could cause a stroke, the family statement said.  

Namazi is among four dual Iranian-American citizens whose release the Biden administration has been trying to secure as part of indirect negotiations with Tehran. Rights groups accuse Iran of arresting dual nationals and foreigners to gain leverage for sanctions relief, the unfreezing of assets and other concessions from their home countries.

Namazi’s son Siamak Namazi, 51, is the longest held American prisoner in Iran. After nearly seven years in detention on spying charges his family says are baseless, he was released from Tehran’s notorious Evin prison on Saturday as part of a one-week renewable furlough.

In Abu Dhabi on Wednesday, Baquer Namazi will be reunited with his other son, Babak Namazi, for the first time in more than six years.  

“It is impossible to articulate and describe sufficiently how I am feeling,” Babak Namazi said in a statement. “I am just so grateful that after so long, I will shortly be able to embrace my father again. In recent years, I thought this day would never happen.” 

Baquer Namazi, a former UNICEF official, was arrested in February 2016 by members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who lured him to Iran on the premise he could visit his son Siamak, a businessman who was detained several months before. 

Both men were convicted in October 2016 of collaborating with the United States and sentenced to 10 years in prison in a trial that human rights groups described as a sham. After two years in Evin Prison, the senior Namazi was placed on a highly restrictive medical furlough and later had his sentence commuted. 

His health had severely deteriorated while in Iranian custody. Namazi was hospitalized more than a dozen times in detention, lost multiple teeth and had two heart surgeries, according to his family. He also developed stress-induced adult-onset epilepsy and severe depression.  

Last month, his family announced that Namazi needed urgent surgery to avoid a stroke. Namazi underwent a similar procedure in Iran in October 2021.  

Babak Namazi said Wednesday was a “bittersweet” day because three Iranian Americans remain held by the Islamic Republic, including his brother. He called on Iran and the United States to reach an agreement to release Siamak as well as businessman Emad Shargi and Morad Tahbaz, an environmentalist who also holds British citizenship. Tahbaz was released from prison in July on temporary furlough with an ankle bracelet.

In a statement, the Namazi family’s pro bono lawyer Jared Genser said the “work is far from over” and called on Iran and the United States to “act expeditiously to reach an agreement that will finally bring all of the American hostages home.”

The families of the imprisoned Americans have expressed concerns that their loved ones fates’ are linked to the nuclear talks, which have again stalled following nearly a year and a half of talks.

In an interview with Al-Monitor late last month, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian insisted Iran was “absolutely ready” for a prisoner exchange even without a deal to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Following news of Siamak’s furlough and the lifting of Baquer’s travel ban over the weekend, Iran’s semi-official news agency Nournews reported that billions of dollars of Iranian assets that are frozen abroad under US sanctions would soon be released.

State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel called the report “absolutely false” and told reporters Tuesday that the release of the Namazis was not part of a broader deal involving the American prisoners or blocked funds. 

Namazi’s departure from Iran comes as nationwide protests continue over the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was arrested last month for allegedly violating the country’s strict dress code for women. The United States has since sanctioned the so-called morality police who detained Amini, and on Tuesday, President Joe Biden warned the United States would “impose further costs” on the perpetrators of Iran’s protest crackdown.

This story has been updated since publication.