Iran Indicts Lebanese IT Expert Nizar Zakka on Unknown Charges

Nizar Zakka, a US permanent resident from Lebanon who has done work for the US government, was on Monday indicted on unknown charges in Iran along with three dual nationals.

The four were held by Iran's authorities amid a series of detentions that followed last year's nuclear deal with world powers.

They all are believed to have been detained by hard-liners in Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. The reasons for their arrests remain unclear, though the husband of one of them says his family was told by the Guard she'd be released if the British government agreed to their demands.

Iran's semi-official ISNA and Tasnim news agencies quoted Tehran's prosecutor, Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi, naming the three dual nationals indicted along with the IT expert Zakka as:

- Homa Hoodfar , an Iranian-Canadian woman who is a retired professor at Montreal's Concordia University;

- Siamak Namazi , an Iranian-American businessman who has advocated for closer ties between the two countries and whose father is also held in Tehran;

- Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe , an Iranian-British woman who works for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of the news agency.

The four were arrested in connection with separate cases over the past year. Family members and representatives of the four say they did nothing wrong.

Dowlatabadi's statement did not elaborate on the charges. He said another seven people faced charges related to the unrest that surrounded the country's disputed 2009 presidential election.

Marwan Abdullah, a nephew of Zakka, told An Nahar newspaper in June that the latter's health had deteriorated in prison, quoting the detainee's wife who visits him once a week.

He also denied an announcement by Lebanon's foreign ministry about a visit by the Lebanese consul in Tehran to Zakka in his prison, lamenting what he called “major negligence” from the Lebanese authorities.

On May 23, Iranian official Hossein Jaberi Ansari announced that Tehran "will try to speed up" the case of Zakka, in the first Iranian acknowledgment of the man's detention.

Zakka had disappeared in Tehran in September after attending a government-sponsored conference.

Although no charges have been announced, Iranian media has accused him of being an American spy, allegations vigorously rejected by his family and associates.

The Associated Press reported in May that the Washington-based nonprofit organization headed by Zakka, IJMA3, had received grants totaling $730,000 from the U.S. government for Middle East projects. It is not clear from records obtained by the AP if any IJMA3 work involved Iran.

Zakka's family and his supporters are pressing the U.S. government to become more active in trying to obtain his release, arguing that his arrest was due to his ties to the United States.

Supporters have written Secretary of State John Kerry stating Zakka traveled to Iran "with the knowledge and approval of the U.S. State Department, and his trip was funded by grants" from it.

It's still unclear what prompted Iranian authorities to detain Zakka. His supporters say his September trip marked the fifth time he had traveled to Iran.

Relations between Iran and the U.S. remain tense even after the recent nuclear deal and a prisoner swap in January that freed Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian and three other Iranian-Americans.