Held Hostage by Iran: What Emad Shargi Wants America to Understand

Iranian-American businessman Emad Shargi spent more than five years detained in Iran, enduring solitary confinement, brutal interrogations, a mock execution and a 10-year prison sentence after being accused of cooperating with the United States.

Now, Shargi joins The Cipher Brief CEO & Publisher Suzanne Kelly to tell the extraordinary story of his arrest, imprisonment, attempted escape from Iran and eventual release — and to offer a stark warning about how the Iranian regime operates.

Shargi describes the night IRGC intelligence agents raided his family’s home in Tehran, his detention inside the notorious Evin Prison and the pressure he faced to falsely confess to being a CIA spy.

He also recounts an attempted escape from Iran after being sentenced to a decade in prison — an effort that ended when he was captured near the Iraqi Kurdistan border and returned to IRGC custody.

But this conversation goes beyond his years in prison.

Drawing on his firsthand experience with the Iranian security apparatus, Shargi explains why he believes Washington must fundamentally rethink how it deals with Tehran, the role economic pressure can play in weakening the regime and why he believes the Iranian people ultimately have the will to demand change.

“You cannot negotiate with a cult of death,” Shargi tells The Cipher Brief.