Family of UK couple detained in Iran may seek Trump's aid - Telegraph
The family of a British couple imprisoned in Iran on spying charges says it is considering appealing to US President Donald Trump for help, according to the Daily Telegraph.
The family of a British couple imprisoned in Iran on spying charges says it is considering appealing to US President Donald Trump for help, according to the Daily Telegraph.
Lindsay and Craig Foreman, both 52, were arrested in January while traveling through Iran on an around-the-world motorcycle tour.
Iranian authorities accused them of espionage — charges their relatives have forefully denied.
The pair have been held for nine months, with Mrs. Foreman only recently moved from the infamous Qarchak women’s prison to Evin prison in Tehran, where her husband is also detained.
Qarchak, a converted cattle farm about south of Tehran, is one of the country's harshest prisons, and rights groups have said it is overcrowded and rife with disease.
Mrs. Foreman, the family told the Telegraph, was transferred to Evin after three women in Qarchak died in just ten days from lack of medical care.
Evin prison has held foreign nationals, journalists and political dissidents for decades.
Joe Bennett, Mrs. Foreman’s 31-year-old son from Kent, said the family was watching recent political developments closely — particularly President Trump’s remarks about Iran during his address to Israel’s parliament on Monday.
In his speech to the Knesset, President Trump appeared to extend an olive branch to Tehran, declaring: “We are ready when you (Iran) are, and it will be the best decision that Iran has ever made, and it’s going to happen. The hand of friendship and cooperation is open.”
Bennett said his family took hope from the statement, suggesting Trump’s renewed push for Middle East diplomacy could offer a path toward freeing the couple.
“What’s happened with the Hamas peace treaty and everything over there, Donald Trump is saying he wants to start the same course of action potentially with Iran, there might be scope for some sort of negotiation in that sense.”
Asked whether the family would reach out directly to Trump or his team, Bennett said: “I think as a family we would be open to exploring that to get the safe and urgent return of my mum and Craig home, we would be naive not to explore all opportunities, or at least listen to what’s possible. It may not be that it’s the US or Donald Trump that does it, it may be a third-party embassy.”
The family is scheduled to meet UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper on Thursday. Bennett said they are cautiously optimistic about his mother’s transfer to Evin, calling it “welcome news” given the slightly better conditions there and the possibility of more phone contact.
The only direct communication he has had with his mother in nine months was an eight-minute call in July. “She was placed on an intravenous drip while held in Qarchak but has learnt that she no longer needs one,” he said.
The case underscores the ongoing strain between Iran and Western governments over the detention of dual nationals and foreign travelers — a pattern human rights groups have decried as “hostage diplomacy.”
For the Foreman family, the hope now lies in a potential shift in US-Iran relations
