Morad Tahbaz, the British-Iranian man held in a Tehran prison, has been released with an electronic tag, the UK Foreign Office has confirmed.
He was due to be released on a tag at the same time as Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori were allowed to return to the UK in March, but he was only allowed to return to his mother’s home in Tehran for a few days beforehand. he was sent back to Evin prison.
Tahbaz is co-founder of the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation. In January 2018, Iranian authorities arrested him and eight other people affiliated with PWHF. He has American, British and Iranian citizenship.
In November 2019, the Iranian judiciary sentenced Tahbaz to 10 years in prison for “contacts with the enemy government of the US”.
The government of Oman is understood to have acted as an intermediary in the release, as it did in the release of Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
An FCO spokesman said: “The Tahbaz family have confirmed that Morad has been released from Evin prison on leave and is at home in Tehran.
“Morad is a tri-national and we continue to work closely with the United States to urge the Iranian authorities to permanently release him and allow him to leave Iran.”
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It is not clear whether there was any trade-off by the US or the UK that led to the relaxation of their terms. One possibility is that Oman or another foreign power has agreed to post substantial bail to secure his release.
Tahbaz’s daughter Roxanne Tahbaz said her father “should be free” and urged Foreign Secretary Liz Truss to do more. She said in a statement: “I can confirm that my father is on temporary leave in Iran with an ankle bracelet.
“I am glad that I can be with my mother, who is also in Iran under a travel ban, and that this permission will allow her to receive the medical care she urgently needs.
“However, the UK Government’s work is unfinished. My father is a UK national and he and my mother should have been on the flight with Nazanin and Anoosheh four months ago.
“They should be free. Home is not in Iran, home is with their children.
“As the Foreign Secretary campaigns on a promise of results and delivery to the nation, I hope he will keep his promise to my family and my father and secure his unconditional release.”
Eilidh Macpherson, Amnesty International UK’s people at risk campaign manager, said: “This is very encouraging news, but we have been here before and now we have to see the UK push hard for Morad’s release unconditionally and complete the permit for him to leave Iran together with his wife, Vida.
“In March, when Morad was granted temporary release for just 48 hours, it was clear that the Iranian authorities were once again playing cruel games with a British national for diplomatic gain.
“It goes without saying that Morad should never have been jailed in the first place and it remains a matter of great concern that British citizens continue to be arbitrarily detained by Iranian authorities like this.”
Britain has already paid off its historic £400m debt to Iran, a move most observers said was linked to Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s release. Truss refused to accept there was any direct link and said the two episodes were unrelated.
Truss was criticized for allowing Ashoori and Zaghari-Ratcliffe to be released without securing Tahbaz’s release, but he appeared to think that the Iranians were intransigent and that Tahbaz would be treated as an individual whose future would be negotiated with the US. Truss said the Iranians had gone back on their commitment to allow him to be released on parole.