Americans freed from Iran land in US

The Biden administration imposed sanctions on Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, according to the US Treasury Department.

“Today’s action targets Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for enabling the wrongful detention of our citizens, causing immeasurable pain and suffering for both the victims and their families,” said Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson. “We remain strongly committed to the victims and their families, and are resolute in our efforts to hold accountable those who perpetrate these acts.”

This is the second set of sanctions imposed under an executive order signed by President Joe Biden that seeks to punish organizations or criminals responsible for holding Americans captive. 

That executive order draws heavily from an existing law — the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act — which laid out the criteria for who is considered wrongfully detained, expanded the tools to help free those US detainees and hostages, authorized sanctions and was meant to foster increased engagement with families. 

That law was named in honor of Robert Levinson, an American detained in Iran for decades and who is believed to have died there.

“We'll never give up on Bob Levinson's case,” one senior administration official said.

Former Vice President Mike Pence is expected to criticize President Joe Biden in a speech Monday afternoon after agreeing to unfreeze $6 billion of Iranian funds in exchange for the release of five Americans who had been wrongfully imprisoned in Iran, according to a senior Pence campaign official.

In the speech the official said Pence will argue that China may look to exploit the US after seeing the Biden administration’s actions towards adversaries so far.

The official pointed to the Iranian prisoner release agreement as well as the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan as examples of a “posture of weakness.” 

The senior official also said Pence will celebrate the return of the American hostages to the US but will express concern over how China will interpret the agreement with Iran.

More about the speech: Pence’s planned speech on Monday marks the second major policy speech the former vice president will make this month, after an address on the growing threat of populism in New Hampshire in which he criticized Trump and other like-minded Republicans for rejecting pro-democracy values.

The official said the speeches reflect a desire by Pence to focus on policy, while acknowledging that Republican primary voters may not be excited by policy-focused speeches.

“In many cases today, a lot of primary voters are more focused on personality than policy, but I think that's a contrast we want to have,” the official said. “We want to lay out what our vision, what Mike's vision is for the United States and where he would take it as president.”

“If other campaigns don't want to lay out their policy vision, then, you know, that's their call,” the official added.

The family of freed American Emad Shargi spoke with President Joe Biden on Monday, his sister, Neda Sharghi, said in a statement.

The family also received video calls from Emad at the airport in Doha, the statement said, noting the calls were “very short” but “he sounded excited and optimistic.”

Neda Sharghi said that Biden “told the families that his Administration had secured the release of their loved ones and they are now safely in the custody of the US Government.”

She “thanked President Biden for ‘the moral and political courage he demonstrated,’” the statement said, adding that Biden replied that "she and her family should take good care of Emad."

"The president also indicated he remembered having met Ms. Sharghi on the margins of the Nowruz celebration at the White House, where she handed him a letter asking for his help for the imprisoned Americans,” the statement continued.

According to the statement, Emad’s wife, Bahareh Shargi, told Biden, “this was the first time in five years that we once again have light in our home.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday he “wouldn’t anticipate” any indirect discussions with Iran this week at the United Nations General Assembly.

Blinken said that the release of five Americans from Iran in a broad deal between Tehran and Washington “doesn’t speak to anything else in the relationship.”

“When it comes to perhaps the number one issue of concern, which is Iran’s nuclear program, we continue to believe that diplomacy is the best way to get a sustainable effective result, one that we had previously with the Iran nuclear agreement, and we’ll continue to see if there are opportunities for that,” Blinken said at a news conference Monday.

More background: Five Americans who had been imprisoned in Iran have been freed and have landed in Doha, Qatar, before flying to the United States later on Monday.

The five, all of whom had been designated as wrongfully detained, were freed as part of a wider deal that includes the US unfreezing $6 billion in Iranian funds.

CNN's Mostafa Salem, Becky Anderson and Rob Picheta contributed to this report.

The laywer of Siamak Namazi said the freed American told him, "I'm finally free."

Namazi is one of the five Americans to be freed after being imprisoned in Iran. They landed in Doha, Qatar, before flying to the United States later on Monday. The five, all of whom had been designated as wrongfully detained, were freed as part of a wider deal that includes the US unfreezing $6 billion in Iranian funds.

Siamak Namazi’s mother, Effie Namazi, and Morad Tahbaz’s wife, Vida Tahbaz – who were previously unable to leave Iran – were also on the flight from Iran to Doha, a senior Biden administration official said.

Namazi has endured beatings and tasing among other mistreatment, Genser told CNN.

"This family has been through more than anyone can imagine, and I am just glad that their suffering has come to an end. Obviously, there's a long road ahead in terms of their healing. But this is nothing but an extraordinary day," Genser added.

Hear more from the lawyer of Siamak Namazi here:

Under the agreement between the US and Iran, $6 billion in Iranian funds that had been held in restricted accounts in South Korea was transferred to restricted accounts in banks in Qatar. Iranian and US officials were notified by Qatar on Monday that the transfer had taken place, according to a source briefed on details of the matter.

Sources told CNN the funds came from oil sales that were allowed and placed into accounts set up under the Trump administration. Biden administration officials have stressed that the funds that have been transferred to the accounts in Qatar will only be able to be used by Iran for humanitarian purchases and each transaction will be monitored by the US Treasury Department.

The agreement, which has already prompted criticism from Republicans, also involves the release of five Iranians in US custody.

The first senior administration official noted that two of the five Iranians had served a majority of their sentences; the other three were awaiting trial and had not yet been convicted.

The overall contours of the release protest began to crystallize in Doha about seven months ago after years of indirect negotiations. The first tangible public steps under the deal took place about five weeks ago, when four of the Americans were transferred into house arrest. The fifth American was already under house arrest.

As a result, the US had to pursue indirect avenues, relying on partners in the Middle East and Europe including Qatar, Oman, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, all of whom served as interlocutors for the two sides over the course of negotiations.

It was Qatar who served as the key broker for the ultimate deal, as Iranian and US negotiators would gather in separate hotels – within sight of each other – in Doha as Qatari diplomats shuttled back and forth and the details were hammered out.

In the weeks following the transfer into house arrest, US officials stressed that the final discussions were ongoing and sensitive. And in that time, the Swiss ambassador to Iran made regular visits to the Americans to check on their conditions, the senior administration official said. Switzerland serves as the US protecting power in Iran since the US does not have a diplomatic presence there.

Senior administration officials would not discuss when US President Joe Biden signed off on the deal and pushed back on critics of the deal.

The US will issue new sanctions against Iran following the release of the five Americans. They will target Tehran’s Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS) and former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, senior administration officials said.

They are the second set of sanctions imposed under an executive order signed by President Joe Biden that seeks to punish organizations or criminals responsible for holding Americans captive.

The deal to free the Americans from Iranian detention “has not changed our relationship with Iran in any way,” a senior Biden administration official said.

“Iran is an adversary and a state sponsor of terrorism,” the first senior official said. “We will hold them accountable wherever possible.”

“But it goes without saying that when we have an opportunity to bring American citizens home, we do seek to seize it, and that’s what we’re doing here,” they said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he spoke with the five Americans freed from Iran when they landed in Doha in what he called “an emotional conversation.”

“It’s easy in the work that we do every day sometimes to get lost in the abstractions of foreign policy and relations with other countries, and forgetting the human element that’s at the heart of everything we do,” said Blinken at a news conference in New York City, “but today, their freedom, the freedom of these Americans for so long unjustly imprisoned and detained in Iran means some pretty basic things: it means that husbands and wives, fathers and children, grandparents can hug each other again, can see each other again, can be with each other again.”

He noted that the Biden administration has now brought 30 unjustly detained Americans home from abroad.

“We’re going to be working every single day to take steps to make this practice more and more difficult and more and more of a burden on those countries that engage in it,” Blinken said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed his gratitude to “everyone from the State Department and across the government who worked tirelessly to bring home our U.S. citizens” after five Americans were freed from wrongful detention in Iran.

“We will not rest until we have brought home every wrongfully detained American,” he said in a statement.

Blinken also thanked the State of Qatar, saying they played a "indispensable role" over the last two years in "mediating this arrangement."

"I extend our sincere thanks to the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and senior Qatari officials for their steadfast involvement and assistance in securing the release of U.S. citizens and establishing the Humanitarian Channel in Qatar for Iran to purchase humanitarian goods like food, medicine, medical devices, and agricultural products,” he continued.