The Department of State, in one of the most bizarre twists related to the Biden administration’s agreement to release five hostages held in Iran for the largest ransom in history, is implying that the Islamic Republic might have been justified in arresting and imprisoning an American who was not included in the deal.

Under the agreement, made public last Thursday, $6 billion held in South Korean banks as part of the Iran sanctions regime was unfrozen in return for the release from a Tehran prison of five Americans who were kept there as hostages. Last week Secretary Blinken said he was unaware of any American who was left behind.

Yet, a sixth American, Shahab Dalili, remains at the notorious Evin prison, where he’s been incarcerated for more than seven years, accused of spying. 

“I believe the secretary was asked if he was aware of any American citizens or legal permanent residents who were designated as wrongfully or unjustly detained in Iran, and that’s what he was speaking to,” the state department’s deputy spokesman, Vedant Patel, told reporters Monday, when asked about the discrepancy between Mr. Blinken’s statement and Mr. Dalaili’s continued incarceration. 

Mr. Dalili “has not yet been determined wrongfully detained,” the spokesman said. As in all cases, he added, “there is a process that is ongoing as it relates to actively reviewing and assessing individual cases for indicators for wrongful detention.”

Because that process has not been completed in Mr. Dalili’s case, the secretary was correct in saying that “every U.S. citizen wrongfully held in Iran has been released on house arrest as part of the news that we shared last week,” Mr. Patel contended.

Mr. Dalili’s son, Darian, has been protesting in front of the White House since the ransom deal became known. On Monday he moved his sit-in to the Department of State’s doorstep.

The administration’s deputy Iran negotiator, Abram Paley, called members of the Dalili family on Friday. Yet, he declined to explain why after seven years of incarceration, the department has apparently been unable to determine whether there is truth in the allegation that Mr. Dalili is a spy. 

“My father doesn’t have the sort of personality you need to be able to spy on anyone,” Darian Dalili told the Sun. The state department has been aware of the case for a long time and still, he said, Mr. Paley told the family on Friday that it was beyond his “purview” to decide whether Mr. Dalili is “wrongfully detained.”  

The elder Mr. Dalili, a 60-year-old Iranian merchant boat captain who retired in America, was arrested in 2016 while on his way to the Tehran airport to fly back to his Virginia home. After traveling to Iran for a week to attend his father’s funeral, the regime vaguely accused him of “cooperating with a hostile government,” an apparent reference to America.  

“I know for sure Dalili is accused of espionage and working with the American government,” a former American hostage who had been held at Evin prison until his release in 2019, Xiyue Wang, tells the Sun. “He was jailed with me. Everyone in my section of prison was accused of the same ‘crime.’”

The state department’s contention that after seven years it is yet to determine whether Mr. Dalili is a spy makes no sense, Mr. Wang says. “If Dalili is not wrongfully detained, then that means he did work with the U.S. government. If so, wouldn’t it provide additional justification for the government to get him out?”  

Meanwhile, the deal’s final steps are being orchestrated, including the conversion to euros of funds worth $6 billion that are held in won currency at a Seoul bank. Following that process, the sum would be deposited in several batches into two Qatari banks, according to a report in the web publication Amwaj, which has ties to Tehran reformist politicians.

The five Americans who were included in the deal were transferred from Evin late last week to a hotel, where they are held under house arrest. The process of converting the funds’s currency and transferring it to Swiss banks and then to Doha may last up to a month, Amwaj reports. Until its completion the five hostages would remain in custody. 

Some kinks reportedly remain in the complex deal’s choreography. Several regime officials, for one, claim it promises full Iranian control of the funds, while the Biden administration insists it would be able to supervise the money to assure it is only spent on humanitarian needs.

Still, the families of the five hostages now thankfully can hope to soon see their loved ones at home. At the same time, one American family appears to be getting the runaround from the state department, what with its cryptic insinuations that perhaps the Islamic Republic was not “wrongful” to confine Shahab Dalili to the Evin dungeons.