US denies $400 million paid to Iran was ransom

Money from a frozen Iranian fund in the US was paid under a tribunal settlement and had been used as leverage during negotiations, US authorities said.

The US released $400 million (€353 million) in cash to Iran under a tribunal settlement only once it was assured that American prisoners had been freed and had boarded a plane, the US State Department said on Thursday.

"The payment of the $400 million was not done until after the prisoners were released," State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters.

"We took advantage of that to make sure we had the maximum leverage possible to get our people out and get them out safely," Kirby added.

According to Reuters, this was the first time the administration publicly said that it used the payment as leverage to ensure the prisoners were released by Iran.

Three of the five prisoners, namely Jason Rezaian, the Washington Posts's Tehran bureau chief, Saeed Abedini, a pastor from Idaho and Amir Hekmati, a former US marine from Flint, Michigan, as well as some family members, were part of a prisoner exchange that followed the lifting of most international sanctions against Iran following a nuclear deal in 2015.

One more prisoner, Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari, is said to have chosen to remain in Iran, while a fifth prisoner, student Matthew Trevithick, was released separately.

Both US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have denied that the payment was ransom for the release of the prisoners or tied to the Iran nuclear deal.

The White House announced on 17 January that it was releasing $400 million in funds which were frozen since 1981, as well as an additional $1.3 billion (€1.15 million) in interest owed to Iran, as part of a settlement of a long-standing Iranian claim at the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal in The Hague.

The funds were part of a trust fund Iran used before its 1979 Islamic Revolution to buy US military equipment that was tied up for decades in litigation at the tribunal.