Masoud Soleimani, professor of biology at Tarbiat Modares University has been detained by the FBI since 7 October 2018 for unclear charges.
On professor Soleimani’s latest situation in the US jails, the President of the Tarbiat Moddares Univeristy Mohammad Taghi Ahmadi said in a press conference on Tuesday that he is one of the several Iranian researchers and scientists imprisoned in the United States.
Ahmadi said that the Tarbiat Moddares’s professor was on a sabbatical in the US and was arrested at the airport and transferred to a prison in Atlanta last October.
He added that the US authorities have imprisoned the hematology and stem cell researcher without providing any evidence against him.
He also noted that the Iranian scientist is held in ward where criminals are jailed.
Saying that the US prosecutor and the FBI authorities are seeking to file a suit against him, the Tehran-based university president added “the issue that they [American authorities] have brought up against him is that the professor had ordered a human growth hormone medicine in the United States while that medicine was not banned by the sanctions at all.”
Ahmadi further pointed out that Soleimani looks frail now and has recently been denied a certain kind of medicine for his digestive illness. He added that Iran’s Interest Section in the US has been contacted to provide the medicine demanded by the Iranian researcher.
Ahmadi went on to call on the US judicial authorities to impartially look into Soleimani’s case and take necessary steps to release him.
He also said that the Iranian Foreign Ministry is pursuing the scientist’s case with providing legal consultation and taking other legal actions.
KI/4691535