Iran-born New Yorker's four-year ordeal nears end

Here is a sickening reminder (in case you needed one) of just how barbaric and corrupt the Iranian regime really is. Yaghoub Khezri, a Jew, had lived outside his native Iran for three decades, but a return visit to claim property turned into a nightmarish four years in jail. The charge? 'Womanising'. The age of the accused? 81.

A broken man, Mr Khezri is on his way home. Marc Santora tells his harrowing story in The New York Times (With thanks: a reader)

Update: Mr Khezri is being held up by red tape and is stuck in Swtizerland. Please lobby Congressman Anthony Weiner and the State department to get him home to the US.

Nearly three decades had passed since Yaghoub Khezri fled his native Iran in 1978, on the eve of the Islamic revolution, to begin a new life in Forest Hills, Queens.

It was in New York that he watched his children have children of their own, as his past receded further and further.

But the old memories kindled the faint hope that he could return one day.

So when, in 2004, some old business partners from Tehran reached out to Mr. Khezri and told him it was safe to come back and claim property that had been seized by the government, the lure — both financial and emotional — proved more powerful than any fears about what might happen if he returned.

And at the age of 81, it was most likely his last chance to see Iran.

Almost as soon as he landed in Tehran, however, Mr. Khezri found himself at the center of a nightmare. He was arrested, and at first faced charges that carried a possible death sentence. Eventually, he was convicted of “womanizing” and “immoral acts” and sentenced to three and half years in prison and 99 lashes.

On the day he was convicted, April 7, 2005, Mr. Khezri wrote a short statement on the sentencing document. “I will be in this hellhole for 42 months,” he wrote. “God help me. Death would be better than this.”

Mr. Khezri did not die.

After four years of struggle and uncertainty, tireless advocacy by his family and friends, the efforts of American officials, and an untold number of bribes, Mr. Khezri, now 86, finally was able to leave Iran and was to return to New York on Wednesday.

Even as many questions about his case remain unanswered, his harrowing story provides a glimpse into a society where notions of justice can leave an elderly man beaten so badly that he can now barely walk.

Mr. Khezri arrived in Switzerland last month. The effects of his imprisonment have left him traumatized, and his family fears that he is beginning to develop Alzheimer’s disease, his son Bijan Khezri said. He added that an interview could not be arranged.

“My mother told me this many times over the phone: Don’t be surprised when you see your father,” said Bijan Khezri, who lives in Queens. “This is not the same man. He has grown very weak, very fragile.”

Krista Errickson, a journalist and documentary maker who has known the Khezri family for years and has worked in Iran, has been involved in the effort to bring Mr. Khezri back to the United States since the spring.

“This is an innocent man who was put through hell,” she said. “Some people say you are stupid, why would you go back? Iranians miss their homeland, and sometimes they just want to go back to see it.”

Ms. Errickson, who is working on a documentary about the case, said Mr. Khezri may have been set up so that others could somehow make a profit if he were out of the picture.

Bijan Khezri said the property his father was going back to claim was probably worth a little more than $1 million.

But even before he could work out any deal concerning his property, Mr. Khezri was placed under house arrest and asked if he was a spy for Israel.

This is where the story becomes shadowy. Mr. Khezri is Jewish, although it is unclear what role religion played in his ordeal.

Some 25,000 Jews live in Iran, the largest Jewish population in the region outside of Israel.

The government insists that it makes a distinction between Zionists and Jews of Persian descent.

But the relationship between Iranian Jews and the Islamic republic is complicated, said Roya Hakakian, an Iranian writer in the United States who has delved into Jewish-Iranian issues.

While there are a number of high-profile cases in which Jews have been arrested on trumped-up charges, the discrimination is more often indirect and subtle, she said.

“They started instituting rules in favor of ideological Muslims,” she said. “That led Jews and other minorities to start losing ground.”

In 1999, 13 Iranian Jews in the city of Shiraz, one of them a 16-year-old boy, were arrested and accused of espionage. The case drew international condemnation, and 10 of the Jews were convicted on lesser charges.

Ms. Hakakian said she thought that if Mr. Khezri had been arrested because he was Jewish, he probably would have been charged with espionage.

While Mr. Khezri’s family said that his interrogation initially centered on accusations that he was an Israeli spy and a supporter of the United States, he ended up being convicted for “womanizing” and “immoral acts.”

Soon after he was convicted, he had to endure 99 lashes.

“All of the lashes are administered at once,” Ms. Errickson said. “First they whip the legs, the back, the neck, the feet, the hands. And then they turn you around and get you in the front.”

Mr. Khezri was then kept in solitary confinement for nearly a year, according to his family.

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