Navy vet got unexpected help while jailed in Iran
When released, he repaid friendship from fellow prisoner
WASHINGTON — Michael White had only recently arrived in a grim Iranian jail when a curious fellow prisoner, an English-speaking Iranian, approached him in the courtyard to talk.
The American did not reveal much at first, but it was the beginning of an unlikely friendship between White, a Navy veteran imprisoned on spying charges he says were unfounded, and Mahdi Vatankhah, a young Iranian political activist whose positions on social issues had drawn his government’s ire.
As the men connected behind bars over a shared interest in politics and human rights, they developed a bond vital for both.
Vatankhah, while in custody and after his release, helped White by providing White’s mother with crucial, firsthand accounts about her son’s status in prison and by passing along letters White had written while held.
Once freed, White did not forget. He pushed successfully for Vatankhah’s admission to the United States, allowing the men to be reunited last spring inside a Los Angeles airport, something neither could have envisioned when they first met in prison.
“He risked his life to get the information out for me when I was in the prison in Iran. He really, really did,” White said in an interview alongside Vatankhah. “I told him I would do everything I could in my power to get him here because I felt, one, that would be for his safety in his own life. And I also felt he could get a great contributing member of society here.”
This year, White received permission for Vatankhah to live temporarily in the U.S. under a government program known as humanitarian parole, which allows people in for urgent humanitarian reasons or if there is a significant public benefit.
Vatankhah told The Associated Press he had dreamed about coming to the U.S. ever since he could remember. When he landed, “It was like the best moment of my life. My whole life changed.”
White, 50, a Southern California native who spent 13 years in the Navy, was arrested in Iran in 2018 after traveling to the country to pursue a romantic relationship with a woman he met online. He was jailed on various charges, including espionage accusations that he calls bogus, as well as allegations of insulting Iran’s supreme leader.
He endured what he says was torture and sexual abuse, an ordeal he documented in a handwritten diary that he secretly maintained behind bars, and was sentenced to 10 years in prison in what the U.S. government has said was a wrongful detention.
Vatankhah, 24, said he had been in and out of prison since he was a teen because of his involvement in left-leaning causes and criticism of the Iranian government. He met White in 2018.
Though Vatankhah was released, he was arrested again, this time winding up in the same cell as White in Iran’s Mashhad prison.
During the course of their friendship, Vatankhah helped White navigate his imprisonment and better understand the judicial system, functioning as an interpreter to help him communicate with guards and inmates. In early 2020, while Vatankhah was out on furlough, he also became a vital conduit to the outside world for White.
Using information from White, Vatankhah got in touch with Jonathan Franks, a consultant for families of American hostages and detainees who was working on White’s case and later helped lead the parole process for Vatankhah. He also spoke with White’s mom and smuggled out White’s letters.
The detailed information about White, his status and his health — he suffered from cancer and COVID19 in prison — came at a crucial time, providing a proof-of-life of sorts at a time of heightened tensions between the U.S. and Iran due to a U.S. drone strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who led the expeditionary Quds Force of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.
White was released in a June 2020 prisoner swap, exchanged for an American-Iranian physician imprisoned in the U.S. for violating sanctions laws. Vatankhah, also freed in 2020, went to Turkey.
Vatankhah is now living in San Diego, where White is from. Vatankhah said his humanitarian parole is good for one year, but he already has applied for asylum, which would allow him to remain in the U.S. He’s obtained a work permit and found work as a caregiver. He’s also enjoying freedom. “I like to express my ideas here where I can. I can continue to use my freedom to talk against the Iranian regime.”