Jailed US Citizen, Dual Nationals Lose Appeal

Iran confirmed on Sunday that an appeals court had upheld 10-year jail terms against a US citizen, two Iranian-Americans and a US resident from Lebanon who had been convicted on spying charges. Tehran Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi identified the four as Princeton University student Xiyue Wang, Iranian-American businessman Siamak Namazi and his elderly father Baquer and Nizar Zakka, a Lebanese citizen with permanent US residency, the judiciary’s news website was cited by Reuters. In Washington, Jared Genser, a lawyer for the Namazis, said in a statement carried by the US media last week that their family was informed that a Tehran court had upheld the convictions days earlier. Earlier in August, Princeton University and the wife of Wang, a history doctoral student and US citizen, said they had been informed that Iranian authorities had denied the appeal. Wang was purportedly conducting dissertation research in Iran in 2016 when he was detained and charged with “spying under the cover of research”. Iran sentenced Zakka, a Lebanese citizen with permanent US residency, to 10 years in prison and a $4.2 million fine in 2016 after he was found guilty of collaborating against the state. Zakka, an information technology expert, had been arrested when he visited Iran a year earlier to attend a conference in Tehran.