U.S. pastor held in Iran wrongly overlooked in nuclear deal: wife

By News on the Net Reuters —— Bio and Archives July 16, 2015

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President Barack Obama should have secured the release of jailed U.S. citizens before sealing a nuclear deal with Iran, and the accord should not win congressional approval until their freedom is guaranteed, the wife of a detained Iranian-American pastor said on Wednesday.

Saeed Abedini, 35, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was sentenced by an Iranian court in 2013 to eight years in prison for allegedly compromising Iran's national security by setting up home-based Christian churches in his native country. His wife, Naghmeh Abedini of Boise, Idaho, said her husband has faced threats to his life from Islamic militants held in the same prison west of Tehran and that his physical and psychological health has deteriorated from a lack of medical care and from stays in solitary confinement. More....