Iran detains president’s negotiator brother

Iran’s judiciary said yesterday that the brother of president Hassan Rouhani has been detained and an American citizen has been sentenced to ten years behind bars for “infiltrating” the country.

The identity of the US citizen was not immediately clear.

Judiciary spokesman Gholamhosein Mohseni Ejehi said Mr Rouhani’s brother, Hossein Fereidoun, was taken into custody over allegations of financial impropriety.

Fereidoun is a close confidant of the moderate president.

He was part of the negotiating team that ultimately sealed Iran’s landmark nuclear deal with world powers in 2015, winning the country relief from international sanctions in exchange for limits on its atomic energy program.

The deal was unpopular with Iranian hard-liners. They saw the nuclear deal as giving too much away.

Fereidoun has long been a target of hard-liners, who have accused him of misdeeds including money laundering.