DUBAI: An Iranian scientist held for more than a year in California on charges of violating US sanctions arrived in Iran yesterday, Iranian media reported, after being freed in what the Omani foreign ministry said was a humanitarian gesture.
Mojtaba Atarodi, 55, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at Iran’s Sharif University of Technology, had been detained on suspicion of buying high-tech US laboratory equipment, previous Iranian media reports said.
The trade sanctions were imposed over Iran’s nuclear programme, which Iranian officials say is for peaceful energy purposes only but Washington says is secretly geared to developing the capability to produce nuclear weapons.
Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency said Atarodi arrived in Tehran yesterday, after a stopover in Muscat on Friday.
Upon arriving at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini airport, Atarodi told reporters that he had tried to buy simple equipment for his personal lab to conduct academic research when he was detained by US authorities, according to state-run Press TV. There was no immediate US comment on Atarodi’s case.
Oman, which enjoys good relations with Tehran, has previously helped mediate the release of Western prisoners held by the Islamic Republic.
Omani authorities had worked with US officials to speed up Atarodi’s case and return him home, the foreign ministry in Muscat said in a statement carried by local media.
He was released after follow-up approaches by Iran’s foreign ministry, its spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said. In a report on its website dated January 7, 2012, Press TV said Atarodi was taken into custody on his arrival in Los Angeles on December 7, 2011, accused of buying advanced lab equipment.
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