A Lebanese businessman detained in Tehran since 2015 on charges of collaborating against Iran arrived in Beirut on Tuesday, after his government secured his release. Nizar Zakka, an information technology specialist who holds US residency, was sentenced to 10 years in jail and fined $4.2 million in 2016. He denied the charges. Lebanon's President Michel Aoun had lobbied for Iran to grant him an amnesty, and officials in Tehran said his release was partly due to the country's close ties with Lebanon's Hezbollah movement. Zakka met with Aoun after landing in Beirut in the afternoon with security chief Abbas Ibrahim. Visibly shaken, he thanked Lebanese officials and his family profusely. He said he did not want to "go into details about false accusations and mock trials." Ibrahim said that, while Hezbollah had played a role in the release, "the base was the request from (President) Aoun". Zakka vanished in Iran in 2015 after attending a conference there. Iranian media said the elite Revolutionary Guards had detained him for alleged ties to US security services. The US State Department had also called for Zakka to be freed, saying he was unjustly held. There was no immediate comment from US authorities on his release. A year after the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major powers ushered in a wary thaw between Washington and Tehran, five US citizens were freed in a prisoner exchange. But US-Iranian tensions have risen since Washington pulled out of the nuclear pact in 2018. In April, Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told Reuters he was proposing "serious dialogue" with Washington on a possible prisoner swap without saying if it would include Zakka. A spokesman for Iran's judiciary said Zakka's release was "a totally judicial process without any political stances or (prisoner) exchange being considered." — Reuters
