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News ID: 66168
Publish Date : 19 May 2019 - 22:01

Renowned Iranian Scientist Held in U.S. Jail

TEHERAN (Dispatches) -- The U.S. has detained an Iranian scientist for nearly seven months without trial, with his brother saying he is being held "hostage".
Masoud Soleimani, 49, a professor and senior stem cell researcher at Teheran's Tarbiat Moddares University, left for the U.S. on Oct 22, 2018, IRNA reported.
He was to undertake a six-month study in the U.S., but was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation at Chicago airport. His visa was cancelled and he was transferred to Dayton prison in Atlanta, the report said.
According to Press TV, Soleimani was invited by the Mayo Clinic, a university hospital in Minnesota, to conduct a research program.
"For months, we weren't given any clear answers until we managed to find out where he was by hiring a lawyer and following up," IRNA quoted Soleimani's brother, Rasoul, as saying.
During Soleimani's sole court appearance on May 14, he was told he was charged with "trying to transfer some 'growth hormone vials' via two students to Iran", the brother told ISNA.
"The vials were not subject to sanctions and have a purely medical use... the Americans' absurd claims have baffled everyone inside and outside the country," Rasoul Soleimani added.
Rasoul emphasized that his "brother is certainly the hostage of the U.S. government". He said that the family had not previously talked to the media because of Iran's national security.
The head of Tarbiat Moddares University Muhammad Taghi Ahmadi was quoted by ISNA as saying that prosecutors' claims Soleimani violated U.S. sanctions by trying to procure a medical substance are "ridiculous and unacceptable".
"The professor has not made any purchase directly... the charges leveled against him are ridiculous and unacceptable," Dr Ahmadi said. "His detention is a harassment operation," he added.
Iran's deputy science minister Salar Amoli told ISNA that two individuals detained with the professor have been released. He said his ministry is coordinating with Iran's Foreign Ministry to secure Soleimani's release.
The Iranian academic was secretly indicted on June 12, 2018, by the FBI for unspecified reasons, Press TV reported, quoting two American lawyers.
U.S. President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal in May last year, and his administration has since reimposed punishing sanctions.
Atlanta lawyers Leonard Franco and Page Pate said that they had been puzzled by the federal government's decision to prosecute a renowned Iranian professor and two of his former students - Mahboobe Ghaedi and Maryam Jazayeri.
Franco said that Soleimani's treatment by federal authorities, the revocation of his visa and the decision to detain him without bond doesn't square with Soleimani's international reputation as a scholar, professor, and doctor widely known in the field of stem cell research and regenerative medicine. Soleimani has no criminal history anywhere in the world, he added.
The hormone, which is a form of synthetic protein, was seized from Jazayeri in 2016 by customs authorities in Atlanta when she was heading to Iran to give it to professor Soleimani for research purposes. Jazayeri had received the hormone from Ghaedi.
The seizure occurred at a time when Washington was still a signatory to the 2015 nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and anti-Iran sanctions had not been reimposed yet.
BJay Pak, the U.S. attorney in Atlanta, secured Soleimani's indictment on June 12, 2018, just a month after Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal, and Soleimani had been fully unaware of such an indictment when he flew to the U.S.
The growth hormone is not banned in the U.S. or Iran and was being used "exclusively for medical research", which is still considered largely exempt from U.S. sanctions, Franco said.
However, Ghaedi and Jazayeri faced similar federal charges for attempting to supply Soleimani with the growth hormone.
Ghaedi is a permanent American resident and an assistant professor at Yale University's School of Medicine. She is free on a $250,000 bond. Jazayeri is a naturalized U.S. citizen and Kentucky resident and has conducted medical research at the University of Louisville. She is currently free on a $200,000 bond.
Almost 50 Iranian nationals are currently imprisoned in the United States under various pretexts, mainly bypassing the U.S. sanctions.