United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres is making a secret attempt to free an elderly American citizen detained in Iran, according to a new report.
Foreign Policy reported Tuesday night that Guterres wrote a letter a week ago to the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, asking for the release on humanitarian grounds of Baquer Namazi, an 81-year-old retired UNICEF official.
On Oct. 18, Iran sentenced Namazi and his youngest son, Siamak, 45 — also a U.S. citizen — to 10 years in prison for allegedly collaborating with a foreign government, the United States.
The U.S. government and the Namazi family dismiss the charges as baseless and consider their detention as a play by Iran’s notorious Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to taunt America and extract concessions.
The Trump administration has been working to secure the Namazis’ release after the Obama administration had tried and failed to do so.
This month, Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, met with Namazi’s older son, Babak, to discuss the case of his father and brother.
On June 15, Haley wrote on Facebook: “Detaining political prisoners is one of the worst human rights abuses a country can do. Iran is doing just that with two of our citizens. Today we met with Babak Namazi whose brother and 81 year old father — who spent his career working on behalf of the world’s children at UNICEF — have been imprisoned by Iran. If they want to have any credibility in the world, they will let Baquer and Siamak come home. No family should have to experience this.”
Foreign Policy reports that Guterres is acting out of humanitarian concern for Namazi — a former U.N. staffer — and not at the instruction of the U.S. government.
Namazi is in poor health, his older son, Babak has said. He has had triple bypass heart surgery and been been hospitalized twice since his detention.
