This article was originally published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and is reprinted with permission.
A verdict has been issued in the court case of a U.S. Navy veteran arrested in Iran last year on security and other charges, a prosecutor was quoted as saying.
A prosecutor in the northeastern city of Mashhad said on March 11 that Michael White faced unspecified “security charges,” according to the semiofficial IRNA news agency.
The prosecutor, Gholamali Sadeqi, did not say what the ruling contained, but said the case had “both private and public plaintiffs.”
Iran declares US Navy veteran guilty of unknown crimes days after the cancer-ravaged captive went on a hunger strike https://t.co/l2jU3UgvAZ
— Daily Mail US (@DailyMail) March 11, 2019
White, 46, has been held since July and is the first known American to have been detained in Iran since Donald Trump became the U.S. president in January 2017.
His mother has said he had traveled to Iran to see an Iranian woman she described as his girlfriend.
At least five other U.S. citizens are being held in Iran, with whom the United States has not had diplomatic relations since 1980.
Ties deteriorated sharply last year when Trump withdrew the United States from the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers and began reimposing sanctions on Iranian’s economy that were eased under terms of the accord.
“Michael White, Navy veteran imprisoned in Iran since July, was beaten after his arrest, has no money to hire a lawyer and still does not know what charges — if any — have been filed against him.
A former cancer patient, his health was deteriorating.”
— Mark Dubowitz (@mdubowitz) March 4, 2019
