Iran Sentences American Jason Rezaian to Prison

Amidst all the news about gas prices and weather forecasts for this Thanksgiving week, Monday’s morning and evening newscasts on ABC and NBC found no time to mention that Washington Post reporter and US citizen Jason Rezaian had been sentenced by Iran’s Revolutionary Court to an unspecified prison term after being detained in July 2014.

However, the IRNA and MEHR news agencies report that Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, a judiciary spokesman, broke the news during a press conference.

For example, on August 9, the day before Mr.Rezaian’s final known court appearance, the semiofficial Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA) quoted Mr. Mohseni-Ejei as saying that “this person has already been sentenced, but I don’t know the details of the verdict”.

Rezaian’s lawyer, Leila Ahsan, told the AP that she was not made aware of the verdict or any details surrounding the sentence.

“No details”, said the Post’s executive editor, Martin Baron, on Twitter.

The Post’s Jason Rezaian, shown in an April 2013 photo.

“My brother is an innocent man and a well-respected journalist”, Ali Rezaian, the reporter’s brother, said in a statement on Sunday, according to the NY Times.

“Even after keeping Jason in prison 488 days so far, Iran has produced no evidence of wrongdoing”, Jehl added.

His incarceration and trial played out as Iran and six world powers, including the US, negotiated a landmark agreement in which Tehran agreed to curb its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. “If true, we call on the Iranian authorities to vacate this sentence and immediately free Jason so that he can be returned to his family”.

Iran’s state media, citing the indictment, have said Rezaian collected information on Iranian and foreign individuals and companies circumventing sanctions and passed them on to the US government.

NORAH O’DONNELL: The Washington Post reports on one of its journalists, Jason Rezaian, receiving a prison sentence in Iran. Iranian state TV has repeatedly called Rezaian an “American spy”.