In an exclusive interview with IRNA, Majid Sarhangpour said that his brother, whose flight from the US arrived in Doha, Qatar on Monday, was a distinguished figure in the field of food and medicine quality control for many years when he resided in Isfahan province.
After he moved to Canada, Dr. Reza Sarhangpour achieved “the highest rankings and positions” in the same field for five years, he said, adding that during the COVID-19 pandemic, his brother demonstrated exceptional efforts to prevent the spread of the disease.
In June 2021, when Dr. Sarhangpour went to a governmental building near the border for an administrative matter, his documents were confiscated and he was detained based on the same baseless allegations that the US usually levels against members of Iran’s scientific community, he explained.
The Iranian scientist was accused of obtaining or purchasing equipment that could have dual applications, possibly relating to the nuclear industry, he added.
“My brother was detained in Washington for over 800 days, enduring extremely harsh conditions during the first six months, spending over 100 days in solitary confinement with no access to him.”
Despite the difficult circumstances imposed on Dr. Sarhangpour, his brother said, he refused to accept any of the charges leveled against him. “He would have resisted if he were supposed to endure a 20-year imprisonment.”
To this day, the United States has been unable to prove any allegations against him and his court sessions have been postponed a dozen times for various reasons, Sarhangpour told IRNA.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said on Monday that two of the Iranians released by the US as part of the prisoner swap deal will head home, two others would stay in the US at their request, and another would join his family in a third country.
As part of the deal, five American prisoners also left Tehran aboard a Qatari plane on Monday to go back to the US.
The prisoner swap between Iran and the US was brokered by Doha during multiple rounds of indirect talks, which have also seen the unfreezing of $6 billion of Iran’s blocked funds in South Korea and their transfer to Iranian accounts in Qatar.
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