Iranians Freed by U.S. Are Shippers, Traders, Sanctions Violators U.S. rejected freedom for Iranians involved with violence, weapons By Damian Paletta and Jay Solomon
http://www.wsj.com/articles/iranians-freed-by-u-s-are-shippers-traders-sanctions-violators-1453060220
WASHINGTON—Two months ago, Houston lawyer Joel Androphy got a call from an Iranian official in Washington requesting a meeting. They met a few days later at a federal detention center in Houston with Mr. Androphy’s client, Bahram Mechanic, a 69-year-old Iranian-American facing charges for shipping electronics equipment to Iran.
The Iranian official asked if Mr. Mechanic would be interested in being part of a clemency exchange between the two countries, a sentiment U.S. officials soon echoed. It remained unclear if the deal would come together until about a week ago.
“Everybody told me to keep my mouth shut, both the U.S. and the Iranians,” Mr. Androphy said in a phone interview from the detention center on Saturday as he waited for Mr. Mechanic to be released.
The U.S. and Iran consummated a historic—though controversial—legal deal Saturday that freed several Iranian-Americans facing charges in Iran and offered clemency to six Iranian-Americans and one Iranian either facing charges or convicted of charges in the U.S.
The agreement isn’t a traditional prisoner exchange. In the case of the Iranians who had either been convicted or were still facing charges in U.S., several might decide to stay in the U.S. rather than go to Iran, lawyers said.
Iranian officials had requested a larger group of people receive pardons, but U.S. officials had insisted they wouldn’t agree to clemency for anyone who faced charges for violent crimes or had any connections to weapons of mass destruction.
ENLARGE Mr. Mechanic, Tooraj Faridi, and Khosrow Afghahi were three of the seven Iranian-Americans granted pardons Saturday. They were charged in April 2015 for violating sanctions by shipping millions of dollars in microelectronics to Iran through intermediaries in places like Turkey. A U.S. embargo prevents U.S. companies from doing business with Iran, though the charges alleged the electronics could be used for military purposes. Mr. Androphy said the shipments consisted of things like surge protectors, not nefarious computer equipment.
Mr. Obama also pardoned Nader Modanlo, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Iran and was living in Potomac, Md., when he was sentenced to eight years in prison for “conspiring to illegally provide satellite-related services to Iran.” Mr. Modanlo was 53 when he was sentenced in 2013.
Ali Saboonchi was also pardoned. The U.S. citizen, living in Maryland, was convicted in 2014 of exporting American manufactured industrial products and services to Iran through intermediaries in China and the United Arab Emirates. The industrial products included chemical equipment like thermocouples, liquid pumps and hydraulic valves.
The sixth pardon went to Arash Ghahreman, a New York man who had been sentenced to six years in prison for a plan to send military electronic and marine navigation equipment to Iran through an intermediary company in Dubai.
The final pardon went to Nima Golestaneh, who had reached a plea agreement with the U.S. Justice Department just last month for participating in a cyberattack against Arrow Tech, a defense contractor based in Vermont. He was arrested in Turkey in 2013 and extradited to the U.S. Unlike the others receiving pardons, he doesn’t also have U.S. citizenship.
It couldn’t be ascertained Sunday which of the prisoners freed by the U.S. planned to remain in the U.S., rather than return to Iran.
Mr. Androphy said he knew things were accelerating a week ago, when an Iranian official contacted him again and requested another meeting.
“He said something is going to happen in the next 60 days or so and ‘Will your client agree to the exchange?’ “ he said. “We said, ‘Of course.’ Then, Wednesday of this week, I got a call from the local U.S. attorney’s office asking me whether we would accept a pardon. It’s like somebody offers you a million dollars—you aren’t going to say no.”
Mr. Androphy would be shown a copy of the pardon signed by Mr. Obama, but it wasn’t effective until the prisoners held in Iran were released. He arrived at the detention center at 5:30 a.m. Saturday but had to wait until late in the evening for a decision on when his client would be released, chomping on three apples and pleading with prison officials not to tow his car outside.
His client was released a little after 4 a.m. Sunday.
In addition to the seven who received pardons, the U.S. agreed to drop charges against 14 people who were living outside the U.S. and so far hadn’t been extradited, according to Iranian media reports.
This list included Matin Sadeghi, a 55-year-old Iranian man whom the Justice Department had charged with conspiring with others to transfer “at least $24 million of microelectronics and other components” to an Iranian company that would distribute the equipment to groups like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp and the Iran Centrifuge Technology Co.
The U.S. also agreed to drop extradition requests for 14 Iranian nationals. The U.S. had filed so-called red notices for the men through the international policing agency, Interpol.
Comments are closed.
