Michael White had only recently arrived in a grim Iranian jail when a curious fellow prisoner, an English-speaking Iranian, approached him in the courtyard for a conversation.
The American did not reveal much at first, but it was the beginning of an unlikely friendship between White, a Navy veteran imprisoned on spying charges he says were unfounded, and Mahdi Vatankhah, a young Iranian political activist whose positions on social issues had drawn his government’s ire.
Iranian political activist Mahdi Vatankhah pauses for photos at the Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles.“He risked his life to get the information out for me when I was in the prison in Iran. He really, really did,” White said in an interview alongside Vatankhah. “I told him I would do everything I could in my power to get him here because I felt, one, that would be for his safety in his own life. And I also felt he could get a great contributing member of society here.
Michael White, a Navy veteran who was jailed in Iran for several years on spying charges, right, hugs Michael’s former fellow prisoner and Iranian political activist Mahdi Vatankhah.White, 50, a Southern California native who spent 13 years in the Navy, was arrested in Iran in 2018 after traveling to the country to pursue a romantic relationship with a woman he met online.
Vatankhah, now 24, said he had been in and out of prison since he was a teenager because of his involvement in left-leaning causes and vocal criticism of the Iranian government, including through protests, social media posts and university newspaper pieces. During the course of their friendship, Vatankhah helped White navigate his imprisonment and better understand the judicial system, functioning as an interpreter to help him communicate with guards and inmates. In early 2020, while Vatankhah was out on furlough, he also became a vital conduit to the outside world for White.
White was released in a June 2020 prisoner swap, exchanged for an American-Iranian physician imprisoned in the US for violating American sanctions laws. Vatankhah, released the same year, made his way to Turkey.
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