"Hostage Diplomacy"; Who Has Iran Exchanged in the Last 10 Years?

Hamid Noury is the latest case of Iran's prisoner exchange policy with Western countries, which is also referred to as the "hostage diplomacy of the Islamic Republic." In this process, the Iranian government attempts to exchange foreign or dual citizens who travel to Iran with its operatives who have been tried and imprisoned in Western countries, or even to receive money from other countries in exchange for the release of foreign or dual citizens. However, Hamid Noury, who was tried in Sweden for his role in the massacre of political prisoners in 1988 and was sentenced to life imprisonment, is not the first Iranian official or figure associated with the Islamic Republic to be released from imprisonment in Western countries under this framework. Now, the number of examples of this event has reached a point where it can be considered an approach and trend implemented for the detention of Western citizens or dual nationals for political purposes. A review of the most significant cases from the past decade shows that in June 2023, Assadollah Assadi, the third secretary of the Iranian embassy in Austria, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his involvement in a "terrorist act in Belgium," was exchanged for a Belgian aid worker named Olivier Vandecasteele. In that exchange, in addition to Vandecasteele, Iran also released Thomas Kim, a 28-year-old Danish citizen, along with Masoud Mosahab and Kamran Ghaderi, two Iranian-Austrian citizens. In September 2023, in an agreement between Iran and the United States, the Islamic Republic released Siamak Namazi, Morad Tahbaz, and Emad Sharqi in exchange for the release of several Iranians detained in the U.S. on various charges, including evading sanctions. Mr. Namazi, a businessman, had been imprisoned in Iran for over 10 years for "collaborating with an enemy government" until he was finally freed in an informal deal between Tehran and Washington. The main goal of Iran in that deal was to gain access to $6 billion of oil revenue blocked in South Korea, which it ultimately achieved. In March 2022, Nazanin Zaghari and Anooshah Ashouri were able to leave Iran after several years of imprisonment in exchange for the payment of a $530 million debt owed by Britain to Iran. This debt was related to a deal made by the government of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi with the British government, and London agreed to pay this amount to Tehran, which ultimately led to the issuance of the release permit for Zaghari and Ashouri. Over four decades ago, during a contract signed during the Pahlavi regime with the then British government, London had committed to deliver Chieftain model tanks to Iran, which never happened. Ultimately, the British government agreed to return this money to Iran, although both sides claimed that the two were not related, but the Islamic Republic did not allow Zaghari and Ashouri to leave Iran until this money was transferred. In December 2020, Kylie Moore-Gilbert, a dual Australian-British researcher and university lecturer, was released from Evin Prison in exchange for three Iranian prisoners. Ms. Gilbert, who had traveled to Iran at the invitation of Alzahra University in the summer of 2018, was arrested at Tehran airport upon her return and later sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges such as espionage. However, after two years, she was able to free herself from the Iranian government’s imprisonment in exchange for the release of three Iranian citizens who were convicted in the case of an "unsuccessful bombing against Israeli diplomats in Thailand." In April 2020, the Islamic Republic released Roland Marshall, a sociologist and partner of Fariba Adelkhah, a dual Iranian-French citizen, in exchange for Jalal Rouhollahnejad, who was detained in France on security charges. Mr. Marshall, like Ms. Adelkhah, was accused of "actions against the national security of the Islamic Republic." In October 2023, the Islamic Republic finally allowed Ms. Adelkhah, who had been released from prison but was not allowed to leave, to depart Iran for France. In December 2019, Xiao Wang, a Chinese-American citizen and PhD student in history at Princeton University, who was arrested in Iran in 2016 on charges of espionage for the United States, was exchanged for Masoud Soleimani, a stem cell researcher imprisoned in the U.S. In January 2016, during the implementation of the JCPOA, Jason Rezaian, an Iranian-American journalist who had been imprisoned for over a year, was released along with four other Americans in exchange for $1.7 billion in cash, which was the debt of the U.S. and its interest owed to Iran. This amount was due to a $400 million payment made by the Pahlavi regime to the U.S. in the 1970s for the purchase of weapons that were never delivered to Iran. Additionally, according to a U.S. court ruling, the U.S. was obliged to pay Iran $1.3 billion in interest on this money. The list of prisoner exchanges between Iran and Western countries in recent years is separate from a longer list of Western citizens or dual nationals who are either still imprisoned in Iran or have been released in other ways. One notable case is Ahmad Reza Jalali, a dual Iranian-Swedish physician and researcher, whose non-exchange in the recent Iranian government deal with Sweden to return Hamid Abbasi to Iran made headlines. Mr. Jalali was arrested by the Ministry of Intelligence agents in May 2016 when he traveled to Iran to attend a scientific conference and was later sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Court on charges of "espionage for Israel" and remains imprisoned. Iranian officials refer to the detention and imprisonment of citizens of other countries or dual nationals and their release in exchange for obtaining their desired concessions as "power diplomacy;" however, many Iranians and Western officials call it "the hostage diplomacy of the Islamic Republic."