U.S. Denies Iranian Dying in Notorious Political Prison Was U.S. Citizen or Resident

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller on Monday addressed reports that a U.S. citizen died in Iran’s infamous Evin prison after his captors denied him medical care. Miller said the individual “is not a U.S. citizen to our knowledge.”

“We have no records to indicate as well that he was a lawful permanent resident,” Miller said. 

“I will say, however, we are still alarmed by the reports that he was denied medical care by Iranian authorities while he was in their custody, and we, of course, express condolences to his family,” he added.

Pressed on whether the Biden administration even knew of the “existence” of this particular Iranian prisoner, Miller responded by once again denying his citizenship status.

“He’s not a U.S. citizen, to our knowledge. We have no records that he was a Green Card holder, a lawful permanent resident,” he repeated.

Miller was keen to deflect accusations that the Biden administration might have left an American behind when it paid $6 billion in ransom to Iran, and released five Iranian operatives from U.S. prisons, to free five Americans in a prisoner exchange earlier this month.

“As you might imagine, we are not tracking the status of every person in Iranian custody,” Miller said, although many Americans might imagine their titanic multi-trillion-dollar government and its legion of federal employees do exactly that. 

“We’re aware of American citizens who – to whom we provide consular – or to whom we request and provide consular access around the world, and of course, the wrongful detainees whose release we secured last week,” he said. “But no, we are not tracking every individual who might have lived in the United States at some point who’s been detained in Iranian prison.”

Although his name was not mentioned by either Miller or reporters at the State Department press conference, the prisoner they were referring to was Faramarz Javidzad. He was either 60 or 63 years old at the time of his death, according to various sources.

Javidzad’s death was confirmed by the Tehran Province Prison Administration in a statement over the weekend.

“The inmate was transferred to the infirmary immediately on Saturday, and CPR procedures were performed in the presence of a physician, nurse and emergency personnel. Unfortunately, despite all efforts made, the inmate passed away,” the administration said.

Iranian officials denied reports that Javidzad became terminally ill because treatment for his stomach ulcer was withheld.

“The individual in question was sent to external medical facilities on five occasions during his time in prison due to a preexisting gastrointestinal condition,” the prison administration said.

Javidzad’s death was reported on Sunday by IranWire, a news service run by dissident and expatriate Iranian journalists. 

IranWire described him as a longtime resident of the United States who “returned to Iran a few years ago” and was imprisoned for unspecified reasons. The report said he died after “prison officials prevented him from being taken to the hospital.”

Little information about Javidzad’s purported life in the United States, arrest by Iran, and incarceration in the brutal Evin Prison has been made public. A man by the same name was mentioned in a December 1996 L.A. Times article about Small Business Administration (SBA) fraud. 

According to the article, Javidzad – 36 at the time, which lines up with the age of the man who died on Saturday – was sentenced to six and a half years in prison on felony charges of defrauding the SBA out of $7 million dollars by processing fraudulent loans related to several disasters and crises, including the 1992 L.A. riots and 1993 Malibu fires.

“Javidzad and his brother Fariborz, 33, now a fugitive in Iran, helped individuals in the Persian community obtain SBA disaster loans. The Javidzads created false tax documents to secure the loans and in return received up to 40% of the loan proceeds as their fees,” the article said, quoting Assistant U.S. Attorney Nathan J. Hochman.

Curiously, the U.S. government had little to say about Javidzad after this announcement, even though his was purportedly the worst case of fraud in SBA history at the time.

The BBC did some digging on Tuesday and found a source who said IranWire’s account of his death was substantially correct: he was taken to the hospital for stomach bleeding, returned to prison, and then kept in prison by officials even after his blood pressure dropped to dangerous lows on Friday. An Iranian media account of his death said Javidzad was discharged from the hospital “at his own insistence.”

Prison officials claimed Javidzad was rushed back to the hospital when his condition grew worse on Saturday, but the BBC found a source who denied those claims, saying the ailing man was merely moved to the prison clinic on Friday and placed on an IV drip, which a “sleepy” nurse later removed. This source said he was not moved to the hospital, even though a judge had authorized transferring him.

The BBC quoted Mizan, the news agency of the Iranian judiciary, stating that Javidzad “had been detained for two months at Evin on various financial charges, and that he was treated five times for digestive problems during that time.”

The Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), an organization based in the United States, on Monday described Javidzad as “a Jewish Iranian-American” and a “63-year-old resident of Los Angeles.”

HRANA blamed Javidzad’s death on “insufficient medical attention and a delay in his transfer to a hospital.” HRANA offered the most detailed account of his incarceration:

His arrest occurred in February/March 2022, following a complaint filed by the institution “Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order.” After enduring three months of solitary confinement and interrogation in Ward 209 of Evin Prison, he was relocated to the public ward. Some of his fellow inmates had reported to HRANA about his worsening health condition during his detention.

Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order (EIKO) is a phony “charity” in Iran, exempted from transparency laws and controlled by the Supreme Leader, currently Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. EIKO allows the ayatollah and top Iranian clerics to control a substantial portion of Iran’s economic assets without depositing the money in their personal bank accounts. 

“EIKO has systematically violated the rights of dissidents by confiscating land and property from opponents of the regime, including political opponents, religious minorities, and exiled Iranians,” the U.S. Treasury Department said in January 2021 when targeting the ersatz “charity” for sanctions.