An Iranian researcher and associate professor who was under house arrest in the United States has been released, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Ramin Mehmanparast, announced on 26 April.
Mehmanparast said that Seyed Mojtaba Atarodi, a US-educated electrical engineer, traveled to the US in December 2011 to attend an academic seminar and was detained by US security forces. The scientist—a microchip expert and associate professor at Iran’s Sharif University of Technology—was arrested for allegedly buying hi-tech US laboratory equipment, and was charged with violating US export laws and sent to a federal prison in California.
“Immediately after Atarodi’s arrest, necessary measures for the legal protection of him were adopted that resulted in his prison sentence being commuted to a house arrest,” Mehmanparast explained. He went on emphasize Iran’s support for the rights of detained Iranian nationals abroad and efforts to secure their release at the earliest opportunity.
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