TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — An Iranian-American businessman says he spent 29 months in a Tehran prison despite being innocent — simply for handing over $200 to a man in Iran that an acquaintance in the United States had given him.
Seventy-one-year-old Reza Taghavi was held in Evin prison on suspicion of ties to an allegedly violent opposition group, known as Tondar, which was implicated in a 2008 bombing of a mosque in the city of Shiraz that killed 14 people.
He was released on Saturday and has not been charged.
Taghavi denies knowingly supporting the organization. He says he “brought the money here without knowing anything about it.”
Taghavi is to travel later Sunday to Shiraz — a trip apparently set as a condition for his release.
He is expected to return to California later in the week.
