Trump says Iran allowed ‘wrongfully detained’ American to leave country
President Donald Trump on Wednesday evening said Iran released a U.S. citizen it has held for nearly two years, a development that could signal positive momentum in peace negotiations between Tehran and Washington.
The president did not name the woman but said she had been “wrongfully detained” since December 2024, when he noted former President Joe Biden was in office. He praised Iran for releasing the woman and said she is now safely outside the country. The woman later appeared to be identified on social media as Dena Karari by her lawyer, human rights attorney Jared Genser.
“Iran has allowed an American Citizen, who was wrongfully detained in December of 2024 under the ‘presidency’ of Sleepy Joe Biden, to leave the Country,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “She is now safely outside of Iran, and in good condition. The United States of America appreciates this gesture of Goodwill by Iran!”
There are believed to be around six Iranian Americans being held in Iran, the Washington Post reported in April, including journalist Reza Valizadeh and Kamran Hekmati, both men being held in Evin Prison, a notorious complex in Tehran. A woman in her 70s is also among those being held prisoner, according to CBS News.
Genser said his client, Karari, was the prisoner whose release Trump announced Wednesday. The State Department declined to comment on her identity. Genser has managed to free over 340 prisoners of conscience from 20 countries over the past two decades, according to a 2023 Guardian profile of him. Genser said Karari is safe and traveling back to the United States in a post to X thanking Trump. Genser told the New York Times that Karari was banned from leaving Iran after visiting her family in Shiraz and was repeatedly interrogated but not detained.
“I am delighted and excited to report that my client U.S. citizen Dena Karari, who had been trapped in Iran since December 2024 on bogus charges is now free,” Genser wrote. “This would not have happened but for the extraordinary and relentless efforts of President Trump.”
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Karari could be the unnamed woman described by the New York Times last year as an Iranian American dual national who worked for a U.S. technology company and also ran a charity for children in Iran. The Iranian authorities confiscated her passports and didn’t allow her to leave the country, according to the outlet, and she was later charged with espionage.
The prisoner release from Iran on Wednesday could mark a positive development in the relationship between Tehran and Washington, which flared up after a tentative 60-day ceasefire collapsed. The Pentagon announced earlier Wednesday that it disabled the first tanker since Trump reinstated a naval blockade against Iranian ports.
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