The daughter of a permanent United States resident who is wrongfully detained in Iran hammered the Biden administration Tuesday for not including her father in a 2023 prisoner swap with the country.
“When Mr. [Robert] Malley and his colleagues negotiated the release of several Americans last summer, and without explanation excluded my father and others, and our family were asking why in hell would we leave the one American hostage in Iran on death row defenselessly in the hands of his kidnappers and tormentors, there was zero response,” Gazelle Sharmahd said during testimony before a House subcommittee.
“And when last month, on March 11, the regime sentenced my dad once again, but this time together with 52 U.S. officials and presidents to pay $2.5 billion within a 60-day ultimatum or else they will hang my dad in public from a crane, there was zero response,” Sharmahd continued.
Sharmahd expressed disappointment in the lack of action and response from the U.S. government on behalf of her father, Jamshid Sharmahd, a German citizen who is believed to have been kidnapped by Iranian authorities on a trip to Dubai in 2020.
“This oversight represents not just diplomatic failure but a betrayal of American values. And you may ask yourself right now, how come I have not been informed and have not heard about an American national harassed, kidnapped, tortured, abandoned, and condemned to death?” Sharmahd said. “Well, I'm asking myself the same question because I've been very vocal from Day One.”
