Briton Morad Tahbaz and four Americans freed from Iran detention land in Doha after £4.8bn deal
A British national and four Americans who were released from detention by Iran in exchange for $6bn (£4.8bn) and a prisoner swap are now free after landing in Doha.
The group’s plane touched down in Qatar’s capital shortly after 3.30pm UK time following their departure from Tehran. It is thought they boarded another plane in Doha and are expected to arrive in the US later on Monday night.
The British man freed is environmentalist Morad Tahbaz, 67, who has British, US and Iranian citizenship.
He was among the dual nationals being held at the time negotiations were under way involving the UK government to free former detainee Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
The group was joined on the flight by two family members and the Qatari ambassador to Iran, a source told Reuters.
The $6bn (£4.8bn) funds, once frozen in South Korea, were released in Qatar after the Biden administration issued a waiver for international banks to transfer frozen Iranian money without the repercussions of US sanctions, an Iranian official announced on state television.
The deal also included the release of five Iranian citizens held in the US. Two of them, named in Iranian media reports as Mehrdad Moin-Ansari and Reza Sarhangpour-Kafrani, landed in Tehran on Monday after also stopping over in Qatar.
Emad Sharghi, Morad Tahbaz and Siamak Namazi land in Doha. Pic: AP
Jailed at notorious prison
The US-Iranian dual nationals released by Iran include businessmen Siamak Namazi, 51, and Emad Shargi, 58.
Together with Mr Tahbaz, they had all been jailed at the notorious Evin Prison in Tehran on spying charges.
In a statement upon landing in Doha on Monday, Mr Namazi thanked everyone who “didn’t allow the world to forget me” after spending 2,898 days behind bars.
“For almost eight years I have been dreaming of this day. Now that it is finally here, I find my ineffable joy of my forthcoming reunification with my family is laced with sorrow – a painful and deep feeling of guilt for taking my breaths in freedom while so many courageous individuals that I love and admire continue languishing behind those walls,” he said.
“They are detained for demanding the dignity and freedom that every human being is inherently entitled to; for reporting the truth; for worshipping their God; for being a woman. For nothing.”
He added: “What I want more than anything is assurance that no one else will know the interminable anguish that my family and I experienced. But sadly, many are suffering those miseries right now.”
The identity of the fourth and fifth prisoners to be released has not been made public.
As well as the two Iranian former prisoners who have arrived in Tehran after being freed by American officials, two others will stay in the US and one detainee will join his family in a third country, an Iranian government spokesperson said.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said earlier: “The issue of swap of prisoners will be done on this day and five prisoners, citizens of the Islamic Republic, will be released from the prisons in the US.
“Five imprisoned citizens who were in Iran will be given to the US side reciprocally, based on their will. We expect these two issues [to] fully take place based on agreement.”
It comes weeks after Iran said the five were released from prison and placed under house arrest.
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From left, Morad Tahbaz, Siamak Namazi, and Emad Sharghi walk away arm in arm from their plane. Pic: AP
British national among those being released
London-born Mr Tahbaz was arrested in 2018 and sentenced to 10 years in prison for “assembly and collusion against Iran’s national security” and working for the US as a spy.
He has – at various stages – been the subject of ongoing negotiations for his release involving British authorities, including when Dominic Raab and Liz Truss were foreign secretaries.
He was temporarily released on the same day charity worker Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe and retired civil engineer Anoosheh Ashoori were freed, but was later returned to custody.
His daughter Roxanne had been among those calling on the UK government to do more to get him released.
He is a prominent conservationist and board member of the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation, which seeks to protect endangered species.
Mr Namazi was convicted in 2016 of espionage-related charges the US has rejected as baseless and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Roxanne Tahbaz holds a picture of her father Morad Tahbaz during a protest outside the Foreign Office in London
Mr Shargi was convicted of espionage in 2020 and also sentenced to 10 years in prison.
The money from South Korea represents funds Seoul owed Iran, but had not yet paid, for oil purchased before Donald Trump’s administration imposed sanctions on such transactions in 2019.
The US maintains the money will be held in restricted accounts in Qatar and will only be able to be used for humanitarian goods such as medicine and food – transactions allowed under American sanctions targeting the Islamic Republic over its advancing nuclear programme.
The West has accused Iran of using foreign prisoners as bargaining chips, an allegation Tehran rejects.
It came as Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi arrived in New York on Monday for a series of events, including a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.
The UK’s foreign secretary James Cleverly told Sky News it was right that the leader was coming so that he could be “held to account”.
The president will also attend an event hosted by thinktank the Council of Foreign Relations, which has invited him to speak on Tuesday. Mr Cleverly will appear at the same function.
But critics on social media have said Mr Raisi should have been met with handcuffs in New York, rather than speaking invitations, because of his government’s oppression of a year of protests in Iran.
World
Romania scrambles fighter jets after Russian drone ‘breaches airspace’ – as Zelenskyy warns of war ‘expansion’
Romania has said a drone breached its airspace during a Russian attack on neighbouring Ukraine.
Fighter jets were scrambled on Saturday, coming close to taking down the aircraft as it was flying very low before it left national airspace toward Ukraine, defence minister Ionut Mosteanu said.
Romania is the latest NATO member state to report an incursion, with Poland deploying aircraft and closing an airport in the eastern city of Lublin on Saturday, three days after it shot down Russian drones in its airspace.
They are the first known shots fired by a member of the Western alliance during Russia’s war in Ukraine.
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Russian drones enter Polish airspace: What we know
Meanwhile, military exercises are taking place over the Barents Sea, with Russia and Belarus conducting joint drills.
Russian MiG-31 fighter jets equipped with hypersonic ballistic missiles completed a four-hour flight over the neutral waters as part of ongoing “Zapad 2025” military exercises, the Interfax news agency reported on Saturday.
Romania has had Russian drone fragments fall on to its territory repeatedly since Russia began waging its full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago.
Two F-16 fighter jets were initially scrambled by Romania, and later two Eurofighters.
Citizens in the southeastern county of Tulcea near the Danube and its Ukrainian border were warned to take cover, the defence ministry said.
The ministry said the drone dropped off their radar 20km (12 miles) southwest of the village of Chilia Veche.
While helicopters were surveying the area looking for possible drone parts, Mr Mosteanu told private television station Antena 3 that “all information at this moment indicates the drone exited airspace to Ukraine”.
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Russia getting ‘ready for war with NATO’
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on social media that data showed the drone breached about 10km (six miles) into Romanian territory and operated in NATO airspace for around 50 minutes.
He said Belarusian airspace was also used for entry into Ukraine’s airspace.
Mr Zelenskyy described the reported incursion as “an obvious expansion of the war by Russia,” and called for “tariffs against Russian trade” and a “collective defence”.
He warned: “Do not wait for dozens of “shaheds” [Iranian-designed drones] and ballistic missiles before finally making decisions.”
NATO has said it plans to strengthen eastern flank defence, following earlier Polish airspace violations.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio called the Polish incursion “unacceptable and unfortunate and dangerous”, and said while it was unclear if the drones were intentionally sent to Poland, if it was the case, it would be “a highly escalatory move”.
Experts, including Sky News international affairs editor Dominic Waghorn have previously suggested the Kremlin is testing the West with gradual but steady escalation – a tactic known as “salami slicing”.
Donald Trump boarding Air Force One on Saturday. Pic: Reuters
On Saturday, Donald Trump said on his Truth Social platform that he was “ready to do major sanctions on Russia”, but only when all NATO nations “do the same thing” and “stop buying oil from Russia”.
Mr Trump has repeatedly threatened sanctions against Moscow, so far without any action.
The president also said NATO members should also put 50% to 100% tariffs on China – and only withdraw them if the conflict ends.
NATO member Turkey has been the third largest buyer of Russian oil since 2023, after China and India, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, with fellow members Hungary and Slovakia also buying energy supplies from Moscow.
The war in Ukraine would end if all NATO countries stopped buying oil from Russia, Donald Trump has said.
The US president, in a post on his Truth Social platform on Saturday, said the alliance’s commitment to winning the war “has been far less than 100%” and the purchase of Russian oil by some members is “shocking”.
Doing so “greatly weakens your negotiating position and bargaining power, over Russia,” he said.
NATO member Turkey has been the third largest buyer of Russian oil since 2023, after China and India, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, with fellow members Hungary and Slovakia also buying energy supplies from Moscow.
A NATO ban on the practice plus tariffs on China would “also be of great help in ENDING this deadly, but RIDICULOUS, WAR”, he added.
The president said NATO members should also put 50% to 100% tariffs on China – and only withdraw them if the conflict ends.
‘China’s grip’ on Russia
“China has a strong control, and even grip, over Russia,” Mr Trump posted, and powerful tariffs “will break that grip”.
The US president has already placed a 25% import tax on goods from India over its buying of Russian energy products.
Mr Trump said responsibility for the war fell on his predecessor Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
He did not include in that list Russian President Vladimir Putin, who launched the invasion.
President Donald Trump at a New York Yankees baseball game on Thursday. Pic: AP
Pic: AP
Village changes hands
On the battlefield on Saturday, Russian troops took control of the village of Novomykolaivka in Ukraine’s southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region, the Russian Defence Ministry said.
A drone attack hit an oil refinery in the city of Ufa, around 870 miles (1,400km) from the border with Ukraine, the local governor said, calling it a terrorist incident.
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Drones shot down in Poland
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said on Friday the 32-nation alliance would place military equipment on the border with Belarus, Russia and Ukraine to deter potential Russian aggression.
Operation ‘Eastern Sentry’ followed Wednesday’s provocative incursion by multiple Russian drones into the airspace of Poland, another NATO member.
Polish forces shot down the drones, which Moscow said went astray because they were jammed.
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Prince Harry’s surprise visit to Ukraine
Prince Harry’s surprise visit
The Duke of Sussex made a surprise visit to Ukraine on Friday, promising to do “everything possible” to help the recovery of injured military staff.
Travelling on an overnight train to Kyiv, Prince Harry, who has since left the country, told The Guardian: “We cannot stop the war but what we can do is do everything we can to help the recovery process.
“We have to keep it [the war] in the forefront of people’s minds. I hope this trip will help to bring it home to people because it’s easy to become desensitised to what has been going on.”
A barrage of airstrikes has killed at least 32 people in Gaza City as Israel continued intensifying its offensive there, medical staff have said.
The dead include 12 children, according to the morgue in Shifa Hospital, where the bodies were brought.
Health officials said one of the strikes killed a family of 10, including a mother and her three children.
The Palestinian Football Association said a player for the Al-Helal Sporting Club, Mohammed Ramez Sultan, was killed with 14 members of his family.
Israel’s army did not immediately respond to questions about the strikes when contacted by the Associated Press news agency.
Israel has in recent days increased its strikes on Gaza City, having ordered residents to leave what it says is Hamas’s last stronghold.
Palestinians run for cover. Pic: AP
Hundreds of thousands of people are still in the city, struggling under conditions of famine, which was declared by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) three weeks ago. Israel previously denied there is a famine in Gaza.
Aid workers say the number of people leaving has spiked in recent weeks, but many families remain stuck due to difficulties with transportation and housing.
Others have been displaced many times and do not want to move again, not trusting that anywhere in the Strip is safe.
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Earlier this month: IDF drops evacuation flyers on Gaza before tower bombed
In a message shared on social media on Saturday, Israel’s army told the remaining Palestinians in Gaza City to “leave immediately” and move south into what it is calling a humanitarian zone.
Sites in southern Gaza, where Israel is telling people to go, are overcrowded, the United Nations has said.
A spokesperson for the Israeli army said more than 250,000 people have left Gaza City – but the UN puts the number at around 100,000 between mid-August and mid-September.
The UN and aid groups have warned that displacing hundreds of thousands of people will exacerbate the dire humanitarian crisis in the enclave.
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The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said on Saturday that seven people, including children, died from malnutrition-related causes over the past 24 hours.
Israel has said it now controls 75% of Gaza, much of which has been reduced to fields of rubble. It has vowed to take the rest.
The current conflict followed Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, when militants killed 1,200 people and took around 250 people hostage.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 64,803 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health authorities. It does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.
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