The wife of a U.S. student imprisoned in Iran on spy charges is reaching out to President Donald Trump to do more to get him out.
“I implore Iran, the U.S., my own country, China, and other members of the international community to come together and find a way to secure the release of this innocent man,” Hua Qu said Thursday on the third anniversary of Xiyue Wang’s arrest. “My husband and our family have become innocent victims in an apparently ever-intensifying quarrel between world powers.”
Hua said Trump should give Wang’s case as much attention as he gave the case of U.S. rapper A$AP Rocky, who was released from a Swedish jail where he was being held for alleged assault.
Iran has proposed a prisoner swap with the U.S. for Iranians it says are being held in the United States. But Washington has demanded that Tehran immediately free all those Americans in Iranian prisoners it says are innocent.
“This case will not be automatically resolved. They definitely need to come to the negotiating table and to speak to each other,” Hua said.
The Chinese-born Wang is a doctoral student in history at Princeton University. He was in Iran in 2016 as part of his academic research into Iranian history when authorities arrested him. He was convicted on espionage charges, and a court sentenced him to 10 years in prison.
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