TEHRAN, Iran — An Iranian-American businessman was released after he spent more than two years in a Tehran prison on suspicion of being involved with a violent opposition group has maintained he was innocent and had actually just been jailed for giving a man in Iran $200 that an American aquantance had given him.
Mr Reza Taghavi, 71, spoke a day after the authorities in Iran released him from the notorious Evin prison, where he had spent 29 months for handing over the cash to a man linked to a militant organization. The group called Tondar were implicated in the 2008 bombing of a mosque in the city of Shiraz that killed 14 people.
Taghavi, who had not been charged, denies supporting the organization. He told AP Television News that he “brought the money here without knowing anything about it.”
