Freed Washington Post reporter sues Iran over imprisonment
Jason Rezaian accuses Tehran of holding him hostage for 18 months to 'extort concessions' from US, claims 'irreparable harm'
WASHINGTON — The Washington Post reporter who was detained for more than 18 months in Iran after being accused of espionage has filed a federal lawsuit against the Iranian government.
The lawsuit filed Monday by Jason Rezaian together with his brother and mother accuses the Iranian government of subjecting him to torture and holding him hostage with the aim of “extorting concessions” from the US government and others.
The Islamic Republic of Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are named in the complaint “for severe personal injuries and other irreparable harm” suffered due to “unlawful acts of terrorism, torture, hostage taking” and other mistreatment.
The suit filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia seeks an unspecified amount of money under the terrorism exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.
Rezaian was arrested in July 2014 and released in January 2016 as part of a prisoner exchange between the US and Iran. In return, the US pardoned seven Iranian prisoners and dropped charges against 14 other Iranians. Iranian officials never specified why Rezaian was targeted. He denied the charges.
The exchange was fraught with controversy when it was revealed in August that the US paid Iran $400 million in cash on the same day the prisoners were freed.
The US State Department has said that the payment was used as “leverage” to secure their release in January, as negotiations for the implementation of last year’s nuclear deal were being settled.
US Secretary of State John Kerry has denied any connection between the cash — and an additional $1.3 billion interest payment — and the implementation of the nuclear deal and the prisoner swap that all occurred in rapid succession. The payment was part of a decades-old dispute over a failed military equipment deal dating to the 1970s, before the Islamic revolution in 1979.
Republicans decried the payments as ransom, a charge the Obama administration has rejected, and last month, the Republican-led House Foreign Affairs Committee approved legislation prohibiting the United States from making cash payments to Iran and requiring that the US Congress be notified before any future claims settlements with Tehran are conducted.