‘BEST MOMENT’

Navy Vet Who Was Imprisoned in Iran Helps Fellow Detainee Flee to U.S.

Michael White was able to get letters to his mother while in prison because of an Iranian political activist he’d met behind bars. After his release, he responded in kind.

A U.S. Navy veteran and a young Iranian political activist were reunited in a Los Angeles airport earlier this year after bonding behind bars in an Iranian prison in 2018. Michael White, 50, was released from Iranian custody in a June 2020 prisoner swap after spending two years in detention for what he characterized as trumped up charges, including espionage. Once free, White immediately got to work petitioning for the American government to help a man he’d met in detention—Madhi Vatankhah, a left-leaning activist accused of spreading anti-government propaganda. White and Vatankhah had bonded in prison, and Vatankhah had proved vitally important in helping the American navigate his incarceration. This spring, White secured Vatankhah a form of temporary emergency permission to immigrate to the U.S. called humanitarian parole. “He risked his life to get the information out for me when I was in the prison in Iran. He really, really did,” White told the AP. Vatankhah told the wire that landing in the U.S. “was like the best moment of my life. My whole life changed.”