“We don’t leave people behind.”
–US President, Barack Obama.
On 31 Mar, Sergeant Andrew Tahmooressi was driving with his friends to go to a Mexican restaurant and accidentally missed the last exit before the Mexican border. Without the ability to turn around before he crossed the border, he proceeded to the Mexican customs post, where he explained that he missed the exit before the crossing, and volunteered that he had three US legal guns in the vehicle. After that, Sergeant Andrew Tahmooressi was arrested and charged with gun smuggling into Mexico.
Amir Hekmati, a 29-year-old Iranian-American who was born in Arizona and grew up in Michigan, said in a letter addressed to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that he has been held for more than two years on false charges of being a spy for the CIA. He said a televised “confession” he made in December 2011 was “obtained by force, threats, miserable prison conditions, and prolonged periods of solitary confinement.”
Robert Levinson, a retired FBI agent from Coral Springs, Fla., went missing during a business trip to Iran’s Kish Island on March 9, 2007. He was working on behalf of several large corporations as a private investigator researching a cigarette smuggling case. Initially, the U.S. suspected that a terrorist group was behind the kidnapping. U.S. intelligence officials have indicated they now believe Iran is behind Levinson’s captivity.
Saeed Abedini, 33, an American Christian pastor from Boise, Idaho, was arrested during a trip to Iran in the summer of 2012. He was sentenced earlier this year to eight years in prison on charges of attempting to undermine state security. His supporters say his “crime” was attempting to share his Christian faith.
Alan Gross, 64, is a U.S. government contractor serving a 15-year sentence for bringing banned communications equipment to Cuba. He was detained in 2009 while distributing computer equipment as part of a program by the U.S. Agency for International Development to increase Internet access on the island.
Kevin Sutay, a 26-year-old U.S. military veteran and New York native was taken captive on June 20 in Colombia’s volatile southeast by FARC rebels two days after arriving as a tourist. The group said Sutay’s capture was evidence of “the active participation on the ground of American military and mercenaries in counter-insurgency operations in which they appear under the euphemism of contractors.”
Kenneth Bae, a 45-year-old naturalized American citizen with family living in Washington state, was arrested by North Korea in November 2012 while leading a group of tourists in the northeastern port city of Rason. Bae, described by relatives and friends as a devout Christian, was sentenced earlier this year to 15 years of hard labor for unspecified “hostile acts” against the state.
Caitlin Coleman, an American citizen who, along with her Canadian-born husband Josh, disappeared in Afghanistan in October 2012. Coleman was pregnant and would have had a child by the following January; if the infant survived, he or she would be considered an American citizen. The third missing citizen is Warren Weinstein, 72, a government contractor who was doing work in Pakistan when he was kidnapped in August 2011. It was unclear from government officials this week what the status of these Americans was or if active discussions were taking place to secure their release.
Yahia Ibrahim, 27, is a graduate of the school of medicine at Khartoum University and a lifelong Christian. Meriam met and married her naturalized American husband in Khartoum in 2012, and they have a 20-month old toddler son. Currently pregnant with their second child, Meriam was sentenced to death for apostasy and 100 lashes for adultery by the Public Order Court in El Haj Yousif, Khartoum, Sudan on May 11, 2014.
Signaleer 