STORY: An Iranian scientist held for more than a year in California on charges of violating U.S. sanctions arrived in Iran on Saturday (April 27), Iranian media reported.
55-year-old Mojtaba Atarodi, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at Iran's Sharif University of Technology, had been detained on suspicion of buying high-tech U.S. laboratory equipment, Iranian media reports said.
The trade sanctions were imposed over Iran's nuclear program, which Iranian officials say is for peaceful energy purposes only but Washington says is secretly geared to developing the capability to produce nuclear weapons.
Upon arriving at Tehran's Imam Khomeini airport on Saturday, Atarodi told reporters that he had tried to buy simple equipment for his personal lab to conduct academic research when he was detained by U.S. authorities, according to state-run Press TV.
Atarodi said he should never have been arrested in the first place.
Atarodi also said he was well
