American hostage in disbelief over warm welcome for Iran’s Rouhani at UN

by WorldTribune Staff, September 23, 2016

One of four American hostages released from Iran in January said “it’s unbelievable” that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani received such a warm welcome at the United Nations on Sept. 21.

Saeed Abedini
Saeed Abedini

Pastor Saeed Abedini, who spoke to Fox News after Rouhani’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly, said Iran’s human rights situation has only worsened after sanctions were lifted earlier this year.

“I was just telling people that imagine the leader of ISIL coming to the United States after 30 years of all the executions that they did and leaders of the world shaking his hand. It’s unbelievable,” Abedini said.

Abedini said he was physically and psychologically tortured in the Iranian prison he was held in to the point where his stomach was bleeding for months from all the beatings.

“The whole last three to five years that I was there, it was just torturing, it was so hard,” Abedini said.

When he was finally released after the Obama administration’s $400 million cash payment to Teheran, Abedini said he and the other hostages were left to fend for themselves after flying from Iran to Germany.

After spending a few days in a hospital in Germany, Adedini was surprised to hear that he needed to buy his own plane ticket home.

“We were actually all shocked because I came out; I just had prison clothes and [they] just told us you need to buy your own ticket.”

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