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 When the 69-year-old walked out of a Houston detention center on
Sunday before dawn, it was with a pardon from President Barack Obama
that was negotiated secretly with Iran over months in exchange for
the release of four Americans.
The reversal of fortune for Mechanic and six other Iranian men who
received clemency in a deal accompanying the lifting of
international sanctions on Iran underscores how quickly assumptions
about U.S. relations with Tehran have shifted.
The historic swap was marked by uncertainty, concern on both sides
over public perceptions and lingering mistrust between Washington
and Tehran, according to administration officials and lawyers for
six of the Iranians.
The Obama administration required the men to give up the right to
profit from any book or movie based on the pardons and give up any
legal claims against the United States, the terms of the decrees
show.
The Iranians, meanwhile, asked Mechanic - who was among six of the
men with dual nationality - to consider taking a trip home as a show
of gratitude to the government that had lobbied for his release,
according to Mechanic's lawyer Joel Androphy.
 The men's lawyers say Obama's actions vindicate an argument they
made in court. Mechanic and others, they say, were never a threat;
rather, they say, they were immigrant self-starters who were caught
up in enforcement of the most sweeping U.S. trade ban.
Obama has credited the sanctions program - and its tight enforcement
- for crippling Iran's economy and forcing it to accept curbs on its
nuclear program. A broad U.S. embargo against Iran remains in place,
and on Sunday the United States imposed further sanctions targeting
Iran's ballistic missile program.
Lawyers for the Iranians, all but one of whom were imprisoned or
facing trial for sanctions-busting, were first presented with
details of the clemency offers last week, they said.
Mechanic and Afghahi had been held without bail since their April
arrest, while Mechanic's employee Tooraj Faridi had been out on
bail. All three had pleaded not guilty to charges of shipping
electronics to Iran and faced up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
“It’s sort of like winning the lottery,” said Kent Schaffer, a
lawyer who represents Faridi.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and aides had been negotiating a
prisoner exchange with Iran for over a year. The talks gained
momentum in July when the United States and major powers agreed on a
deal to lift some sanctions on Iran in exchange for curbs on its
ability to develop a nuclear weapon.
In recent weeks, the White House established “a de facto war room”
headed by National Security Adviser Susan Rice to coordinate the
swap, a senior administration official said.
The aim was to leave no chance that Iran would not free four
Americans at the same time that clemency for Mechanic and the other
Iranians became effective.
That meant synchronizing minute-to-minute among U.S. officials in
Vienna where the nuclear deal was formally implemented on Saturday,
Swiss officials in Tehran who were with the Americans and prisons in
Texas, Virginia and New York.
“A deal like this creates some trust, but we don’t at this point
have a fully trusting relationship,” the administration official
said. “Neither side really wanted to be the first one to do anything
irreversible.”
NOVEMBER PRISON VISIT
In November, Fariborz Jahansoozan, legal adviser to the Iranian
interests section in Washington, visited Mechanic and Afghahi to
tell them that they could be on the list for a prisoner exchange,
according to Androphy.
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Jahansoozan declined to comment.
He visited the men again in early January and suggested a deal was
closer, according to Androphy, who said Jahansoozan asked him to
keep their conversations confidential.
Then late last week, Justice Department officials told the lawyers
for the men that they were in line for a pardon from Obama, they
said.
Mechanic, who declined to comment when reached by Reuters, was ready
to take the offer. "He wanted out," Androphy said.
Iran had initially presented a list of dozens of prisoners it wanted
released. Though the Iranians were told from the outset Obama would
not consider anyone involved in violence or terrorism, “they tried
to introduce names that didn’t fit that criteria,” the senior U.S.
official said.
WAITING IN HOUSTON
On Friday, Androphy and Mechanic phoned Jahansoozan and the director
of the Iranian interests section, Mehdi Atefat, to discuss the Obama
pardon offer one last time, Androphy said. Atefat could not be
reached for comment.
The Iranian side had a request: Mechanic should go back to Iran, if
only for a visit. Mechanic, who has a business in Iran, plans to
travel there, Androphy said.
"The Iranians wanted somebody to go back to Iran to make it look
like from a political point of view that Iran is not being short
changed here," he said.
U.S. officials told Androphy to be at the federal detention center
in Houston before dawn for Mechanic's release, scheduled for 5:30
a.m. Houston time on Saturday.
That morning Mechanic and Afghahi were ushered into a conference
room at the jail wearing the prison uniform of blue jeans and
t-shirts. Prison officials allowed Mechanic to embrace his wife, but
they were then separated.
The deadline came and went. Prison officials told the group to stand
by as they awaited final clearance.
In Tehran, Iranian officials had objected to the wife and mother of
Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian joining him on the same Swiss
plane. U.S. officials responded by holding up the release of
Mechanic and the other prisoners by almost 24 hours before the
Iranians relented, officials said.
On Sunday, at 4:45 a.m. in Houston, as Rezaian and the other
Americans prepared to leave Tehran, Mechanic and Afghahi were
released.
Mechanic, wearing a blue track suit, and Afghahi, in a tan coat, met
a small crowd of family members waiting in the dark. The two men
embraced their wives, took some selfies and entered a waiting car,
holding the pardons signed by Obama.
(Editing by Kevin Krolicki and Stuart Grudgings)
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