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The Washington Post has released a video showing newly freed reporter Jason Rezaian laughing at a Farsi-language video with his wife, Yeganeh Salehi.
The video was filmed at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, where Rezaian is being treated.
After 545 days behind bars in Iran, the Washington Post correspondent was finally reunited with his family on Monday.
Jason Rezaian, who was arrested in Tehran in July 2014, was released on Saturday, January 16, along with three other US-Iranian nationals in a prisoner exchange, in which the US government released seven people who had been jailed for violating sanction regulations. The exchange was the result of 14 months of secret negotiations between the US and Iran.
The 39-year-old journalist was flown out of Iran on Sunday to a U.S. military hospital in Germany.
On Monday, Rezaian met with The Washington Post’s executive editor, Martin Baron, and foreign editor, Douglas Jehl for the first time since his release.
“I want people to know that physically, I’m feeling good,” said Rezaian according to the Washington Post. “I know people are eager to hear from me, but I want to process this for some time.’’
At the meeting, Rezaian described months of extraordinarily limited human interaction, and said he spent 49 days in solitary confinement and was later put in a 15-by-20-foot room with three cots and no mattresses.
According to Rezaian, he was for most of his time in prison being held by Iran’s powerful hardline Revolutionary Guard Corps. Even the hospitals that Rezaian was taken to were run by the Revolutionary Guards.
Later on Monday, Rezaian was reunited with his family at a nearby guesthouse.
“I want to thank my family, especially the efforts of my brother, Ali, and my wife in Iran and my mother everywhere she was,” Rezaian said. “They have been incredible. I also want to thank everybody at The Post and my colleagues in other media as well, as well as everybody in the U.S. government who played an important role in my release.’’
Wednesday morning Rezaian also appeared in front of the media in Germany for the first time since being freed from prison. He did not answer any questions. The only thing he said was, “I can't wait to go home.”
View the photos from the reunion, and read the full story via the Washington Post.
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