Iranwire – A U.S. citizen on temporary release earlier this month from prison in Iran has been taken back into custody and returned to Tehran’s Evin prison, a lawyer for his family said on October 12.
Siamak Namazi, 51, was temporarily released on a furlough on October 1 when his father, Baquer Namazi, 85, was permitted to leave the country for medical care.
Lawyer Jared Genser said the news he has been returned to prison comes one day before the seventh anniversary of his original arrest and detention in Iran.
“Yesterday, members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) informed Siamak…that his furlough would not be extended further, without providing any explanation,” Genser said in a statement. “Late this morning (Tehran time), Siamak was taken back into custody by the IRGC and forced to return to Evin prison.”
State Department spokesman Ned Price called the development “a tremendous setback.”SEE ALSO:Rights Group Says At Least 201 Dead In Unrest Rocking Iran
Price told reporters at the State Department that the United States is working to achieve the release of Namazi and other U.S. citizens held in Iran.
Babak Namazi, Siamek’s brother, said in the statement he had hoped his father’s departure “was the beginning of a new, less painful chapter in the struggle to make our family whole again.”
But he said Siamak’s return to the Evin prison “has shattered that hope.”
The elder Namazi, a former UNICEF official who holds both U.S. and Iranian citizenship, was allowed to leave the country for medical treatment and the younger Namazi was furloughed.
The United Nations said in a statement on October 1 that the decisions followed appeals by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to the Iranian president.
All the U.S. citizens detained in Iran or barred from leaving the country are dual Iranian-Americans. Tehran does not recognize dual nationality and has had no diplomatic relations with the United States since the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Siamak Namazi was based in Dubai with an oil company when he was detained on espionage charges while visiting family in Tehran in 2015. He was questioned over past associations with U.S. think tanks. The Namazi family says espionage accusations are absurd.
Baquer Namazi was detained in February 2016 after flying to Iran to help his son.
They were handed 10-year prison sentences for “collaborating with the hostile American government.”