![\"\"](\"https:\/\/persian-heritage.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Zarif-300x200.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
VOA – WASHINGTON – Iran appears to have shown little public or private support for 12 Iranians accused or convicted of crimes in the U.S., despite pledging to work for the release of such citizens four months ago in another potential prisoner swap with Washington.\u00a0\u00a0 The last, rare prisoner exchange between the two longtime foes happened December 7, when Iran freed Chinese American academic Xiyue Wang in return for the U.S. releasing Iranian scientist Masoud Soleimani. The swap happened in Zurich through Swiss mediation. Two days later, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted that Tehran was ready for a further \u201ccomprehensive prisoner exchange\u201d with Washington. A day after that, his aide Mohsen Baharvand told Iranian state news agency IRNA<\/a>\u00a0that there were\u00a0\u201caround 20\u201d\u00a0other Iranians whom Tehran was seeking to release from U.S. custody.<\/p>\n U.S. Special Representative for Iran,\u00a0Brian Hook,\u00a0told a December 10th\u00a0forum in Washington that he viewed\u00a0Baharvand\u2019s\u00a0comments as a\u00a0\u201cpositive\u00a0\u2026\u00a0first step\u201d\u00a0that could lead to the release of\u00a0\u201call innocent Americans\u201d\u00a0detained in Iran.<\/p>\n In the four months since then, Hook has said U.S. officials are working continuously for the release of four Americans whom Washington has accused Tehran of unjustly jailing on trumped up charges:\u00a0Navy veteran Michael R. White and three Iranian-American dual nationals\u00a0\u2014\u00a0father and son Siamak and\u00a0Baquer\u00a0Namazi and\u00a0environmentalist\u00a0Morad Tahbaz.<\/p>\n As Iran\u2019s coronavirus pandemic worsened and spread to its prison system in March, U.S. officials added urgency to their calls for the Americans to be released to safeguard their health. Iranian authorities granted White a prison furlough on March 19 after he exhibited coronavirus symptoms, but they have refused to let him leave the country or free the other Americans.<\/p>\n U.S. officials also\u00a0have been\u00a0pressing\u00a0Iran to resolve the case of Robert Levinson, a retired FBI agent who went missing in Iran on a 2007 visit that U.S. media later revealed was part of a rogue CIA mission.\u00a0Last month, the Trump administration said it\u00a0believed\u00a0that Levinson may have\u00a0died\u00a0\u201csome time ago.\u201d<\/p>\n Iran, by contrast, has said nothing publicly since early December about the Iranians whom it wants to be freed from U.S. detention or prosecution. Nor has it named the individuals.<\/p>\n VOA Persian compiled the names of the 12 Iranians who are in U.S. prisons or on conditional release from prison through conversations with lawyers representing some of the individuals and through\u00a0a review of U.S. Justice Department databases.<\/p>\n They include seven\u00a0Iranian-American\u00a0dual nationals and five Iranian citizens, three of them with permanent\u00a0U.S. residency. The\u00a0Iranian-Americans\u00a0include Manssor Arbabsiar<\/a>, Behrooz Behroozian<\/a>,\u00a0Mehdi\u00a0\u201cEddie\u201d\u00a0Hashemi<\/a>,\u00a0 Ahmadreza\u00a0Mohammadi-Doostdar<\/a>,\u00a0Hassan Ali\u00a0Moshir-Fatemi\u00a0and husband and wife Sadr Emad-Vaez and\u00a0Pouran\u00a0Aazad<\/a>.\u00a0The other Iranians are Milad Rezaei Kalantari<\/a>,\u00a0Behzad Pourghannad<\/a>\u00a0and U.S. permanent residents\u00a0Majid Ghorbani<\/a>,\u00a0Amin\u00a0Hasanzadeh\u00a0<\/a>and Ali Sadr Hashemi Nejad<\/a>.<\/p>\n Of the 12 Iranians, five were serving sentences in federal prisons after being convicted of various crimes, namely Arbabsiar, Behroozian,\u00a0Kalantari,\u00a0Mohammadi-Doostdar\u00a0and Pourghannad; while one,\u00a0Hasanzadeh, was in the custody of the U.S. Marshal Service pending trial.<\/p>\n Of the other Iranians, five were on bail with court-ordered restrictions on their movements as they awaited sentencing for various convictions, namely\u00a0Aazad, Emad-Vaez, Hashemi, Hashemi Nejad and\u00a0Moshir-Fatemi; while one,\u00a0Ghorbani, was granted a\u00a0\u201ccompassionate release\u201d\u00a0from a Washington prison earlier this month because of his ill health and\u00a0was allowed to\u00a0relocate to his daughter\u2019s home in Orange County, California, with court-imposed restrictions on his movements until next February.<\/p>\n In addition to its public silence on the cases of the 12 Iranians, Tehran appears to have made little effort to help them using several of the private channels available to it.<\/p>\n Lawyers representing some of the 12 Iranians told VOA Persian they had not heard from officials of any country about including their clients in another U.S.-Iran prisoner swap.<\/p>\n \u201cI have heard nothing about\u00a0Pourghannad\u00a0being part of any prisoner swap,\u201d\u00a0his attorney James Neuman wrote in an April 23 email, referencing one of the two Iranian citizens without U.S. legal status who are serving time in U.S. prisons.<\/p>\n Former Kansas Congressman Jim\u00a0Slatterly, who spent months working with former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson to support U.S. government efforts to negotiate the December 7 swap, told VOA Persian that he also has not heard from his Iranian contacts regarding the cases of the other Iranian citizens jailed or confined in their movements by U.S. courts.<\/p>\n Slatterly\u00a0had multiple conversations with Iranian Ambassador to the U.N.\u00a0Majid\u00a0Takht-Ravanchi\u00a0and met Foreign Minister Zarif at the U.N. in New York last September in the lead up to the last deal.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m surprised that when I was dealing with\u00a0the swap involving\u00a0Wang and Soleimani, there was no mention of these other people,\u201d\u00a0Slatterly\u00a0said in reference to the group of 12 Iranians.<\/p>\n In a statement to VOA Persian, the former New Mexico governor said he and his\u00a0Richardson Center for Global Engagement\u202fhave been working for more than a year-and-a-half to bring Michael White home from Iran. But he declined to address questions about Iranians who could be part of another prisoner exchange with the U.S.<\/p>\n The Washington embassy of Switzerland, which\u00a0represent U.S. interests in Iran, also declined a request for comment on the issue.<\/p>\n