Iran sentences Chinese American to prison

ISTANBUL — A Chinese American student accused by Iran of espionage was sentenced there to 10 years in prison, the judiciary’s official news agency reported Sunday.

The action is likely to raise tensions with the Trump administration ahead of a Monday deadline for the president to decide whether to continue to waive some sanctions on Iran.

Also on Sunday, the brother of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was detained for unspecified financial crimes, the judicial spokesman said. Hossein Fereidoun is a close adviser of the president and was involved in the negotiations that led to the nuclear deal with world powers. Hardline conservatives in Iran had long accused him of corruption.

The Mizan news agency named the American as 37-year-old Xiyue Wang, a graduate student and researcher at Princeton University. The report said he was born in Beijing and is a dual Chinese American citizen, but that information could not be confirmed.

Mizan, which is affiliated with Iran’s hard-line judiciary, reported that Wang had been sentenced as part of an “infiltration project” that included the gathering of “confidential articles” to send back to the State Department and other Western academic institutions.

It was unclear how long Wang might have been in Iranian custody, but Mizan reported authorities arrested him in August 2016 as he was leaving the country.

Monday is the deadline for the White House to decide whether to issue a waiver on nuclear-related sanctions against Iran, a provision that is required periodically under the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal.