Kylie Moore-Gilbert's release shows dangers of making deals with Iran

The release of Kylie Moore-Gilbert, the British Australian academic, is a bittersweet moment for the relatives across the globe of other Iranian dual nationals still trapped in Iranian jails. Many families celebrated her release, but also asked themselves again whether their own governments are doing all they can to bring their loved ones home.

Sherry Izadi, the wife of a 66-year-old British-Iranian construction engineer, Anoosheh Ashoori, jailed for 10 years, told the Guardian: “It is extraordinary the lengths the Australian government was prepared to go to secure her release. They seem to have persuaded the Thai government to exchange three Iranians accused of terrorism in return for her release.” The three-way negotiations between the governments took six months.

“More than anything for me it shows how ineffective the British government has been and how little they are prepared to do in our case. They say to us they are doing everything they can to support us, but what does that support consist of? It is an occasional meeting in which they assure us they are doing everything possible. But what has been achieved? Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe for instance has nearly served her full five-year sentence.

“If you ask the Foreign Office anything specific they normally reply they cannot say, it is diplomatic, behind the scenes and do not want to raise our hopes.”

“If I ask about the debt the UK owes to Iran and the court case surrounding this, or whether the UK is thinking about how it might be paid to the Iranians, the Foreign Office simply refuses to discuss it. I know as much as you do.”

The Foreign Office says the debt from a decades-old military contract is not linked to the fate of British-Iranians, and the debt cannot be paid due to sanctions.

Izadi revealed her lawyers were preparing to ask the Foreign Office to afford her husband diplomatic protection in the same way it has for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian arrested in 2016 and currently under a form of arrest in Tehran at her parents’ home.

Izadi – who is in regular touch with Richard Ratcliffe – claims: “The Iranians see all this hostage-taking like a game of chess. Everything is calculated and the next move thought through. It is all coordinated.”

She judges that Moore-Gilbert has been released partly because Iran achieved a bargaining objective – the release of three Iranians in Thailand – and partly because Iran may be trying to distract from the plan to execute the Iranian-Swedish scholar Ahmadreza Djalali who was handed down the death penalty three months ago and is due to be executed shortly.

On Tuesday, Dr Djalali phoned his wife, Vida Mehrannia, with the message that he had to say goodbye. He was placed in isolation and informed that he would soon be executed. On Wednesday Dr Djalali’s lawyer confirmed that Iranian authorities have officially written a letter saying that they will carry out the death sentence against him. Iran this week rejected an “interference” by Sweden after its foreign minister, Ann Linde, called on Tehran not to execute him.

“The judicial power of the Islamic republic is independent – all interference in the issuance or carrying out of judicial decisions is rejected as unacceptable,” Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said on Tuesday.

Speculation is rife the Iranians are interested in bartering over Djalali and hope to secure the release of an Iranian diplomat in Belgium, Assadollah Assadi, detained over an abortive bomb plot and due to stand trial.

In France the support committee for Fariba Adelkhah, a prisoner in Iran since 5 June 2019, welcomed Moore-Gilbert’s release.

Adelkhah has been released from Ervin prison but remains under house arrest, required to wear an electronic bracelet 24 hours a day.

Campaigners for German-Iranian Nahid Taghavi also welcomed Moore-Gilbert’s release. Taghavi was seized on 16 October at her Tehran apartment, accused of jeopardising Iranian security. Her daughter Mariam Claren makes daily video appeals for information about her mother’s welfare. Germany has now warned all its dual nationals not to visit Iran. As many as four German dual nationals may be in detention.

Others known to be arrested include the Iranian-American Siamak Namazi, his father, Bagher Namazi, and an American conservationist Morad Tahbaz. Others do not wish to be identified.

The release of detainees following negotiations raises complex moral issues notably whether Iran is being rewarded for its hostage diplomacy. Xiyue Wang – a Chinese-American Princeton academic who was arbitrarily detained by Iran before being released as part of a prisoner swap between America and Iran in 2019 – argues that the motives behind hostage-taking is not hard to discern.

He told the International Observatory on Human Rights: “I think the answer is rather simple, because it works. Because every single time you look at the successful solution of a hostage situation … every time the Iranians got something.”