Iranian-American businessman arrested and imprisoned in Tehran

An Iranian-American businessman based in Dubai was arrested earlier this month in Iran, making him the fourth American holding dual citizenship to be held in Tehran.

People briefed on the situation told The Wall Street Journal that two weeks ago, Siamak Namazi, the head of strategic planning at Crescent Petroleum Co., was arrested while visiting relatives in Tehran. The arrest was made by the Revolutionary Guard's intelligence service, which reports to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, not the Iranian government. Several businessmen interviewed from both inside and outside Iran told the Journal that in recent weeks, Iranian businessmen with ties to foreign companies have been detained, interrogated, and warned against getting involved in economic monopolies held by the Revolutionary Guard. Hardliners within the Iranian judiciary and intelligence services are also reportedly hoping to threaten the Iran nuclear deal by creating points of tension with the U.S.; they are against engaging with the West because they want to keep foreign influence out of the country.

Friends of Namazi's told the Journal that intelligence agents ransacked the home he was staying in, took his computer, and have launched cyberattacks against some of his email contacts. Namazi comes from a prominent Iranian family, and moved to the U.S. in 1983 when his father started working at the United Nations, The Washington Post reports. After college, he returned to Iran for compulsory military duty, and he wrote that he became a U.S. citizen in 1993 because it is easier to travel on a non-Iranian passport, and it helped him receive scholarships and grants for school. He wrote about Iran frequently, and published an op-ed in The New York Times in 2013, urging the West to relax sanctions so life-saving medicine could get into the country.

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The U.S. State Department has been asking Iran, which does not recognize dual citizenship, to release three other Americans: Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian, who was recently convicted after an espionage trial; former Marine Amir Hekmati, accused of being a spy after traveling to Iran to visit his grandmother in 2011; and Saeed Abedini, a pastor convicted in 2013 of threatening Iran's national security by participating in home churches. All three deny the allegations.