Zarif:

Iranian Scientist Detained for US Anger at Iran’s Scientific Advancements

TEHRAN (defapress)- Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Washington invited stem cell Professor Masoud Soleimani and put him behind bars last year as a result of its anger over Iran's scientific advancements.

News ID: 79555

Date: 13 December 2019 - 19:14

Upon arrival at Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport on Saturday evening while accompanying the Iranian stem cell scientist Dr. Masoud Soleimani, Zarif said that Iran’s science and technology advances have become like a thorn in the eyes of the ill-wishers of the country.

Professor Soleimani arrived at Tehran Mehrabad airport after he was released by the US in a prisoner swap. He was welcomed by his family members and Iranian officials upon his arrival. Zarif accompanied the released scientist from Zurich where the swap took place.

Zarif told reporters that he is "very happy that on National Students’ Day, one of the greatest professors and scientists of our country is returned home."

Rebuking the US for indicting the Iranian professor “without any reason”, Zarif said “they arrested a university professor with 500 scientific articles after they invited him and gave him a visa to do research at the highest US scientific institute."

According to the Iranian minister, Dr. Soleimani had been repeatedly offered by the United States to stay in the US instead of returning home but the “patriotic professor" turned down their request.

Soleimani arrived in the US on October, 22, 2018 with a visa issued upon an invitation by the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota to lead a research program on the treatment of stroke patients.

He was, however, arrested by the FBI upon arrival at the Chicago airport. His visa was canceled and he was transferred to a jail in Atlanta, Georgia.

His family had several times voiced worries about Soleimani’s “poor” mental and physical condition in jail, saying he is suffering from chronic irritable bowel syndrome, has lost 15 kilograms and suffers from severe vision loss.

Soleimani’s family condemned the US government's hostile act.

BJay Pak, the US attorney in Atlanta, secured Soleimani’s indictment on June 12, 2018, just a month after President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the Iran nuclear deal, and Soleimani had been fully unaware of such an indictment when he flew to the US.

Franco and Page Pate, another Atlanta lawyer, 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 - for purported trade sanction violations over eight vials of human growth hormone.

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 re-imposed yet.

The growth hormone is not banned in the US or Iran and was being used “exclusively for medical research”, which is still considered largely exempt from US 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 US citizen and Kentucky resident and has conducted medical research at the University of Louisville. She is currently free on a $200,000 bond.

“I truly don’t understand it,” Franco said of the government’s decision to prosecute, adding that it appeared to be “some type of policy argument”. Pate, who represents Jazayeri, said his client was “completely confused by all this.”

Motions to dismiss the charges are pending in federal court in Atlanta in front of US District Judge Eleanor Ross. However, Federal prosecutors in Atlanta have not yet responded to the motions.

Hearing this case had been adjourned for at least three times since October and his family and Tarbiat Modares University had paid over $70,000 to his lawyers to prove his innocence, but all to no avail, said TMU’s Vice-chancellor for Research Affairs Yaghoub Fathollahi.

Fathollahi added that Soleimani is a distinguished professor who has been ranked among the top 1% scientists in the world.

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