He was due to be released on a tag at the same time as Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori were allowed to return to the UK in March, but was only allowed to return to his mother’s home in Tehran for a few days before. he was sent back to Evin prisons. Tahbaz is co-founder of the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation. In January 2018, Iranian authorities arrested him and eight other people linked to PWHF. He has American, British and Iranian citizenship. In November 2019, Iranian justice sentenced Tahbaz to 10 years in prison for “contacts with the hostile US government”. It is understood that the Omani government acted as a mediator in the release, as it did in the release of Zaghari-Ratcliffe. An FCO spokesman said: “The Tahbaz family have confirmed that Morad has been released from Evin prison on leave and is at their home in Tehran. “Morad is a trinational and we continue to work closely with the United States to urge the Iranian authorities to permanently release him and allow him to leave Iran.” Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST It is not clear whether there was any exchange from either the US or the UK that led to the easing of his conditions. One possibility is that Oman or another foreign power agreed to pay a substantial bond to secure his release. The UK has already repaid the historic £400m debt owed to Iran, a move most observers said was linked to the release of Zaghari-Ratcliffe. The Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, refused to accept there was a direct link and said the two incidents were unrelated. Truss was criticized for allowing Anoosheh and Zaghari-Ratcliffe to go free without securing Tahbaz’s release, but she apparently believed that the Iranians were intransigent and that Tahbaz was to be treated as a person whose future would be negotiated with the US. Truss said the Iranians had reneged on their commitment to allow him to be released on parole.
