麻豆影视

Skip to main content

Daughter of U.S. citizen jailed by Iran says she has lost confidence in efforts to bring him home

Tara Tahbaz's older sister, Roxanne, holds a picture of her father Morad Tahbaz who is jailed in Iran, stages a protest outside the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) in London. (Photo by Stefan Rousseau/PA Images via Getty Images)
Tara Tahbaz's older sister, Roxanne, holds a picture of her father Morad Tahbaz who is jailed in Iran, stages a protest outside the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) in London. (Photo by Stefan Rousseau/PA Images via Getty Images)
Share
MADRID -

The daughter of an environmentalist imprisoned by Iran said on Saturday she had lost confidence in U.S. President Joe Biden's efforts to free her father.

Morad Tahbaz, an Iranian-American who also holds British citizenship, has served five years of a 10-year sentence after being convicted of spying.

He was briefly released to house arrest with an electronic tag in March 2022 when two other dual nationals, including British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, were allowed to leave Iran.

In July his lawyer was quoted as saying he had been granted bail, but his daughter said he was now back in jail.

"I think being told since Biden has taken office that our loved ones are a priority, and then seeing no action - it is hard to hold hope," Tara Tahbaz told Reuters in Madrid while she was visiting from the United States to see relatives.

She said her family and the relatives of two other U.S. prisoners in Iran hoped Biden would grant them time to explain their stories at a meeting in Washington scheduled for next month.

She said her father, now 67, suffered from prostate cancer and had had COVID-19 three times in jail.

The United States has urged Iran to release Tahbaz and two other citizens, Emad Shargi and Siamak Namazi, who are all imprisoned on espionage charges that Washington says are baseless.

U.S. State Department spokesman Vedant Patel tweeted on Saturday: "We once again call on Iran to cease unjustly imprisoning foreign nationals for use as political leverage and to release U.S. citizens Emad Shargi, Morad Tahbaz, and Siamak Namazi."

Namazi, an oil executive, was jailed for 10 years in 2016 on charges of spying and cooperating with the U.S. government. Shargi was convicted in 2021 and also sentenced to 10 years.

(Reporting by Graham Keeley, Catherine MacDonald, Guillermo Martinez; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

CTVNews.ca Top Stories

Emotions boiled over after a judge acquitted two out of three defendants in a manslaughter case, while the third accused has since died.

Elections BC is reissuing new 'where to vote' cards to some residents after an administrative error mistakenly recommended voting places that were farther from homes than necessary.

A Toronto senior says she can鈥檛 believe that two roofers took advantage of her, despite knowing she was recently widowed and suffering from a painful disability.

Local Spotlight

A B.C. couple is getting desperate 鈥 and creative 鈥 in their search for their missing dog.

Videos of a meteor streaking across the skies of southern Ontario have surfaced and small bits of the outer space rock may have made it to land, one astronomy professor says.

A unique form of clouds made an appearance over the skies of Ottawa on Sunday evening.

Bernie Hicks, known as the 鈥楤atman of Amherst,鈥 always wanted to sit in a Batmobile until a kind stranger made it happen.

Bubi鈥檚 Awesome Eats, located on University Ave West took to social media to announce the closure on Friday.

Weeneebayko Area Health Authority and the Government of Ontario have awarded a $1.8 billion fixed-price contract to design, build and finance a new Far North hospital.

Manitobans are in cleanup mode after intense winds barreled through southern parts of the province this weekend.

Avry Wortman, 13, scored two touchdowns on Sunday during her team's win in the under 14 Greater Moncton Football Association.

A gargantuan gourd 鈥 affectionately named 鈥極rangina鈥 by the urban gardeners who grew it in the front yard of their Vancouver home 鈥 earned the massive honour of being named B.C.鈥檚 heaviest giant pumpkin Saturday.