• US frees Iranian scientist after more than year in custody, Oman says

    Matthew David Kohn / AP

    Mojtaba Atarodi will reportedly return to Iran on Saturday.

    By Saleh al-Shaybani and Sami Aboudi, Reuters

    MUSCAT, Oman -- An Iranian scientist held for more than a year in California on charges of violating U.S. sanctions arrived in Muscat on Friday, after being freed in what the Omani foreign ministry said was a humanitarian gesture.

    Mojtaba Atarodi, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at Sharif University of Technology, had been detained for allegedly buying high-tech U.S. laboratory equipment, according to previous Iranian media reports.

    The U.S. sanctions are linked to Tehran's disputed nuclear program, which it says is for peaceful purposes only but Washington says is aimed at manufacturing a nuclear weapon.

    Iran's semi-official Fars news agency said Atarodi would return home on Saturday.

    Oman, a U.S.-allied Gulf Arab state which enjoys good relations with Tehran, has previously helped mediate the release of Western prisoners held by the Islamic republic.

    Authorities in the Sultanate had worked with U.S. officials to speed up Atarodi's case and return him home, the Omani foreign ministry said in a statement carried by local media. It said Oman would provide medical attention for Atarodi until his return to Iran, giving no further details.

    He had been released after follow-ups by Iran's foreign ministry, that ministry's spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast was quoted as saying by the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA).

    Now that they're safe on U.S. soil, two American hikers freed from an Iranian prison last week talk about their captivity in Iran. NBC's Ron Allen reports.

    Iran and the United States severed relations after the overthrow of Iran's pro-Western monarchy in 1979.

    Iran freed two U.S. citizens who had been sentenced to eight years in jail for spying into Omani custody in September 2011.

    Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer were among three people arrested while hiking along the Iraq-Iran border in 2009 were flown to Oman after officials there helped secure their release by posting bail of $1 million. They denied being spies.

    The third, Sarah Shourd, was freed in September 2010, also by way of Oman.

    This story was originally published on Fri Apr 26, 2013 4:25 AM EDT

    Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

    44 comments

    Wonder what Israel thinks of this news???

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  • Kamran Jebreili / AP

    An Iranian smuggler carries a TV in his speedboat as he prepares for a short trip to cross the Strait of Hormuz to reach Iranian coastal areas, in Khasab, Oman. Even as sanctions squeeze Iran ever tighter, there's one clandestine route that remains open for business: A short sea corridor connecting a rocky nub of Oman with the Iranian coast about 35 miles across the Gulf.

    By land and by sea, Iranian smugglers work to deliver 42" LCD TVs

    AP reports:

    The operation smuggles in merchandise to avoid Iranian tariffs and to bring in American and European products that have disappeared from Iranian markets because of international sanctions. Experts note that the consumer items post no real challenge to efforts to block material with military or nuclear uses.

    "Still, it shows you can't close off all channels into Iran no matter how hard you try," said Paul Rogers, who follows security affairs at Bradford University in Britain. "People will find a way."

    Full story: Iran's Gulf smugglers slowed but not stopped by tensions