State TV says Iran reaches deals to release prisoners
Iranian state TV is reporting that deals have been reached to release prisoners with Western ties held in Iran
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran will free prisoners with Western ties in Iran in exchange for billions of dollars from the United States and the United Kingdom, state television reported Sunday. The U.S. and the U.K. did not immediately acknowledge any swap.
The state TV report quoted an anonymous official just as Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei began giving what authorities earlier described as an “important” speech. However, Khamenei did not immediately discuss any proposed swap amid negotiations in Vienna over Tehran’s tattered nuclear deal with world powers.
The official quoted by Iranian state TV said a deal made between the U.S. and Tehran involved a prisoner swap in exchange for the release of $7 billion in frozen Iranian funds.
“The Americans accepted to pay $7 billion and swap four Iranians who were active in bypassing sanctions for four American spies who have served part of their sentences,” state TV said, quoting the official in an on-screen crawl.
Tehran holds four known Americans now in prison. They include Baquer and Siamak Namazi, environmentalist Morad Tahbaz and Iranian-American businessman Emad Shargi. The state TV report did not immediately name the Iranians that Tehran hoped to get the in swap.
Officials in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
State TV also quoted the official as saying a deal had been reached for the United Kingdom to pay 400 million pounds to see the release of British-Iranian woman Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. The office of Prime Minister Boris Johnson referred calls to the Foreign Office, which could not be immediately reached.
Last week, Zaghari-Ratcliffe was sentenced to an additional year in prison, her lawyer said, on charges of spreading “propaganda against the system” for participating in a protest in front of the Iranian Embassy in London in 2009.
That came after she completed a five-year prison sentence in the Islamic Republic after being convicted of plotting the overthrow of Iran’s government, a charge that she, her supporters and rights groups deny.
While employed at the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of the news agency, she was taken into custody at the Tehran airport in April 2016 as she was returning home to Britain after visiting family.
Tulip Siddiq, Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s local lawmaker in London and an outspoken campaigner for her release, said she was “aware” of news reports about the debt being paid to secure Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s freedom but that she has “spoken to her family, they have heard nothing confirming any of these rumors.”
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Gambrell and DeBre reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writers Danika Kirka in London and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.
