This archive report was first published on 4 June 2020.
On Thursday, June 4, 2020, Michael R. White's mother, Joanne White, announced that her son, a Navy veteran, had been freed from Iranian custody after nearly two years.
White, a cancer patient who had contracted the coronavirus while incarcerated, was arrested in July 2018 in the Iranian city of Mashhad for allegedly violating Iran's privacy laws and insulting the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
His mother had repeatedly called on Iranian authorities to release him, citing concerns for his health and insisting that he had done nothing wrong.
White's release came a day after an Iranian scientist, Sirous Asgari, was returned to Iran from the United States, despite American officials insisting that the two cases were not linked.
Iranian officials had suggested that they would look favorably on releasing White once Asgari was back in the country.
White, a resident of Imperial City, California, was arrested while visiting an Iranian woman he had met online.
He was later convicted of privacy violations and sentenced to 10 years in prison, with Iranian prosecutors also accusing him of being a spy.
