US President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that Iran had released an American citizen who had been trapped in the country since December 2024, describing her departure as a "gesture of goodwill" from Tehran. "She is now safely outside of Iran, and in good condition," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. The woman's identity was confirmed by her lawyer, Jared Genser, who revealed his client to be Dena Karari, a dual US-Iranian citizen now travelling back to the United States.
Karari had originally travelled to Iran to visit family in late 2024, after which she was placed under a coercive exit ban and subjected to dozens of interrogations by Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security. Though never physically imprisoned, she endured what Genser described as "enormous physical and psychological hardship." After the United States joined Israel in conducting strikes against Iran in 2025, she was formally charged with espionage and collaboration with a hostile state — charges her lawyer dismissed as fabricated. The accusations stemmed in part from her work running the Children of Mehr Foundation, a non-profit organisation providing support to impoverished children in Iran through private donations and with authorisation from the US Treasury Department.
Genser, a human rights lawyer who has helped free more than 340 prisoners of conscience across 20 countries over two decades, credited Trump's intervention as decisive in securing Karari's release. He called on Iran to drop charges against local staff members of Karari's foundation and urged Tehran to free all remaining Americans held in the country, as well as Iranian political prisoners. According to CNN, the US government had been monitoring at least six American citizens detained in Iran as recently as last month, two of them formally classified as wrongfully imprisoned.
The release comes against a backdrop of sharply escalating tensions between Washington and Tehran. Trump this week ordered a resumption of military strikes against Iran and reinstated a naval blockade targeting Iranian vessels and their clients near the Strait of Hormuz, a strategically vital waterway through which a significant share of the world's oil passes. Despite the renewed hostilities, Iran indicated for the first time since fighting resumed that it was open to a diplomatic resolution to the crisis. The two countries had signed a memorandum of understanding last month aimed at ending the broader regional conflict, though that agreement has since frayed. Iran has long been accused of detaining Western nationals as leverage in diplomatic negotiations with foreign governments.