- One of Baquer Namazi’s sons was granted a one-week furlough for the first time in seven years.
- Namazi, 85, will undergo urgent surgery to clear a “severe blockage” of an artery.
- He has been held more than six years in detention in Iran.
After more than six years in detention in Iran, an American citizen arrived safely in Oman on Wednesday, but one of his sons remains imprisoned in Tehran, according to his family.
Baquer Namazi, 85, flew from Iran to Oman’s capital, Muscat, and will then travel to the United Arab Emirates for urgent surgery to clear a “severe blockage” of an artery, according to his family and lawyer.
Before his father flew out of the country, his son Siamak Namazi, 51, was granted a one-week leave for the first time in seven years of imprisonment.
“It is impossible to adequately articulate and describe how I am feeling.” “I am just so grateful that after so many years, I will soon be able to embrace my father again,” Babak Namazi, Baquer Namazi’s son and Siamak Namazi’s brother, said in a statement.
However, Namazi described the day as “bittersweet” because his brother and two other American citizens remain imprisoned.
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“My brother Siamak, as well as Americans Emad Sharghi and Morad Tahbaz, are still detained in Iran, and our nightmare will not end until our entire family, as well as the other Americans, are reunited with their families,” he said.
Namazi thanked Oman for facilitating his father’s escape from Iran, the United Arab Emirates for hosting him for medical treatment in Abu Dhabi, the United Nations secretary-general for working to get his father released, and the governments of Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Qatar, and the United States, “which has worked on my family’s cases for years.”
He also thanked current and former UNICEF employees, who he said helped his family, as well as human rights organisations and journalists, who “all helped me keep public attention on my family’s plight.”
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