{"id":5196,"date":"2016-08-11T21:07:14","date_gmt":"2016-08-12T02:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/?p=5196"},"modified":"2016-08-11T21:07:14","modified_gmt":"2016-08-12T02:07:14","slug":"executed-nuclear-scientist-returned-to-iran-after-his-family-was-held-hostage-opposition-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/5196\/","title":{"rendered":"Executed Nuclear Scientist Returned to Iran After His Family Was Held \u2018Hostage,\u2019 Opposition Says"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"20168109233671782251_Iranian-nuclear-scientist-Shahram-Amiri-was-\"<\/a>
Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri was executed on Friday<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Patrick Goodenough <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0(CNSNews.com) August 9, 2016 \u2013<\/strong> The Iranian nuclear scientist executed last week for allegedly spying for the U.S. moved here under mysterious circumstances in 2009, then returned to Iran a year later because his family back home was threatened with persecution, an Iranian opposition group said Monday.
\n\u201cBy taking [Shahram Amiri\u2019s] family hostage, exerting pressure on his family and making bogus promises, the regime compelled Amiri to return to Iran in 2010, but imprisoned him despite promises to the contrary,\u201d the National Council of Resistance of Iran ( NCRI <\/a>) said.
\n\u201cApparently the regime had threatened Amiri that his family would be persecuted if he did not return and given that his son was at a very young age, Amiri must have been left with no choice but to return,\u201d said Ali Safavi, a U.S.-based NCRI official.
\nAmir\u2019s execution came six years after he returned to Iran after spending a little more than a year in the United States. At the time he departed, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said he had been in the country \u201cof his own free will and he is free to go.\u201d
\nIran first accused the U.S. and Saudis of abducting him while he made a pilgrimage to Mecca, and after his return hailed him as a hero \u2013 before putting him on trial for espionage 10 months later. He was reported to have been sentenced to ten years\u2019 imprisonment, but after last week\u2019s execution, authorities said that was not the case.
\nJudiciary spokesman Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei said on Sunday the court of first instance had in fact sentenced him to death, and that the execution took place after the Supreme Court upheld that decision.
\nMohseni-Ejei said that Amiri, who had access to Iran\u2019s top secret information, had colluded with \u201cthe great Satan.\u201d
\nIn July 2010, Amiri presented himself to the Iranian interests section at the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, and made his way back home.
\nOn July 13, 2010, Clinton told reporters when asked about him, \u201cHe’s free to go. He was free to come. These decisions are his alone to make.\u201d
\nThe NCRI, however, says the regime applied pressure on him by targeting his family back home.
\nSafavi recalled the case of the popular Iranian pre-revolutionary singer, Marzieh, who was banned from singing publicly after the Islamic revolution, went into exile in Paris in 1994 and joined the exiled opposition movement.
\n\u201cThe regime used a similar tactic with the legendary Iranian diva, Marzieh, and arrested her daughter, when she joined the NCRI in 1994,\u201d he said. \u201cMarzieh of course did not budge and the regime had to release her daughter under international pressure.\u201d
\n(In February 1995 the Chicago Tribune reported that Marzieh\u2019s adult daughter, Hengameh Amini, had been held for 40 days in solitary confinement, accused of conspiring in her mother\u2019s departure.)
\nHikers link?
\nWeeks after Amiri\u2019s June 2009 disappearance while on pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, Iran detained three American hikers who strayed into Iranian territory from the Iraqi region of Kurdistan.
\nIn early 2010, then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad <\/a> said the hikers \u2013 Sarah Shourd, Joshua Fattal and Shane Bauer \u2013 would be freed in return for Iranians held against their will in the United States. He mentioned Amiri by name.
\nAfter Amiri returned to Iran that July, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley was asked whether there was any link between the hikers and Amiri, after he brought up the two cases simultaneously during a press briefing.
\nCrowley said the cases were \u201cnot connected\u201d and that Washington and Tehran were \u201cnot negotiating a swap.\u201d
\n\u201cBut we have shown with an Iranian citizen who chose to come here and has chosen to go home that we\u2019re \u2013 he\u2019s free to do so. We would expect the same consideration when it comes to our citizens, when they travel to the region and up to the border between Iraq and Iran.\u201d
\nShourd was released two months later on \u201chumanitarian grounds\u201d due to ill health, but Fattal and Bauer were charged with espionage and sentenced in August 2011 to eight years\u2019 imprisonment.
\nThe two were released a month later, however, after the government of Oman posted almost $1 million bail.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nPatrick Goodenough<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Patrick Goodenough \u00a0(CNSNews.com) August 9, 2016 \u2013 The Iranian nuclear scientist executed last week for allegedly spying for the U.S. moved here under mysterious […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5197,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-iranresistance","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5196"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5198,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5196\/revisions\/5198"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}