A U.S. permanent resident who has been imprisoned in Iran for more than a year says Tehran is demanding a ransom in exchange for his release.
That demand is likely to rekindle complaints by Republicans that the Obama administration has given an incentive to Iran to take and hold hostages in return for ransom payments, by timing out a $400 million cash payment to Iran in January in order to ensure the release of four hostages.
The Obama administration has argued that the payment was unrelated to the American hostages’ release, and was paid to resolve a longstanding dispute over money Iran had paid to the U.S. to buy jets, a deal that never happened after the Shah of Iran was overthrown in 1979. But officials have admitted that the payment was delayed to gain leverage in the hostage negotiations, and Republicans have warned that decision would lead to more hostage situations.
Nizar Zakka, a Lebanese citizen and permanent resident of the United States, said through his attorney Tuesday that Iranian officials in April told him it would take as much as $2 billion to ensure his release from captivity. In September, Iranian officials lowered that amount to $4 million, and told him that he was spared the death penalty but would remain in prison for 10 years until the payments is made.
“This is a grave breach of, among [other international laws and treaties], the Geneva Conventions against hostage-taking,” his lawyer, Jason Poblete, said in a statement Tuesday. “Iran is using Nizar, other Americans and dual nationals, as political chattel to exact concessions from the U.S. and other powers.”
“On behalf of Nizar, we request that all be done by the U.S. and other governments to secure his unconditional release from captivity on humanitarian grounds,” he added.
Since the Iranian Revolutionary Guard seized Zakka last fall, Poblete says his client has been psychologically tortured and subjected to inhumane and degrading treatment.
“Nizar is extremely weak and getting sicker,” Poblete said. “We continue to request immediate medical attention and urge the United States, other responsible nations, as well as international organizations, to do more to secure his unconditional release on humanitarian grounds.”
Poblete says Iranian officials have denied Zakka medical care, prevented his Iranian attorney from visiting him in prison, except once before the proceedings against him, and have barred him from any consular or third-party visits. The Iranian government last month sentenced Zakka to 10 years in prison and a $4.2 million fine over spying allegations.
Zakka, an advocate for Internet freedom whose nonprofit group did work for the U.S. government, denies the spying charges. He believes the Iranian government, lured him to Tehran in order to seize and imprison him. He was arrested in Iran after traveling there to attend an International Conference and Exhibition on Women in Sustainable Development at the invitation of an Iranian office who asked him to serve as one of the events speakers.
The sentence was handed down by the same hardline judge that sentenced Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian to prison. A prisoner swap in January between Iran and the U.S. freed Rezaian and three other Iranian-Americans.
Zakka is just one of four dual-Iranian citizens or people with western ties the IRGC has imprisoned in the wake of the signing of the nuclear deal between Iran, the U.S. and other world powers.
The three others indicted in July were Siamak Namazi, an Iranian-American businessman; Homa Hoodfar, an Iranian-Canadian and retired professor at Montreal’s Concordia University; and Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, an Iranian-British woman who works for Thomson Reuters Foundation, the news outlet’s charitable arm.
Amnesty International has issued several alerts in recent months warning about an uptick in Iranian detentions of dual U.S.-Iranian citizens and people with strong Western ties.
After Zakka’s 10-year sentence last month, a State Department official called for Zakka’s release “as soon as possible” but wouldn’t say whether U.S. officials have pressed Iranian officials for Zakka’s safe return during the U.N. General Assembly meetings in New York in September.
“As we’ve said before, [Secretary of State John Kerry] raises the cases of detained and missing U.S. citizens anytime he meet with Iranian officials. Beyond that, we’re not going to get into the specifics of the conversations,” the official told the Washington Examiner.
