Iranian scientist freed by US back in Iran — reports
Iranian scientist Sirous Asgari has arrived back in Iran after being released from prison by its arch-foe the US, Iranian media reported yesterday.
The Tasnim, ISNA and Mehr news agencies all carried the same photograph on their Telegram accounts of Asgari, wearing a face mask against the coronavirus, being reunited with his family.
A US court cleared Asgari in November of charges of stealing trade secrets in 2016 while he was on an academic visit to Ohio from Tehran’s Sharif University of Technology.
The 59-year-old told The Guardian in March that the US
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency was holding him at a Louisiana detention centre without basic sanitation and refusing to let him return to Iran despite his exoneration.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Abbas Mousavi on Tuesday denied Asgari’s release was part of a prisoner exchange and said he was freed after being exonerated, adding that his return was delayed because he was infected with Covid-19.
“Mr Asgari was stranded in America for a while because of [being infected with] the coronavirus and the situation with flights,” he said.
The state Ddpartment has yet to respond to a request to comment on his release.
However, Ken Cuccinelli, the acting deputy secretary of US homeland security, said on Twitter that the US had been trying to deport Asgari since last year but that it had been stalled every step of the way by the Iranian government.
Both Iran and the US hold a number of each other’s nationals and they have recently called for them to be released amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Iran is battling what is the Middle East’s deadliest outbreak of the virus, while the US has reported the highest total number of deaths worldwide from the disease.
The Islamic republic is holding at least five Americans and the US had 19 Iranians in detention prior to Asgari’s release, according to a list compiled by AFP based on official statements and media reports.
Tensions between Tehran and Washington escalated in 2018, after President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from a landmark nuclear agreement and reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran.