Home from U.S. jail, B.C. businessman offers warning

[Praxius]

Home from U.S. jail, B.C. businessman offers warning

A Vancouver businessman is warning Canadian businesses to beware of working with countries the U.S. considers enemies, pointing to his time in a Texas jail as a cautionary tale. Farshid Rohani, also known as Seyed Abolghassem Rohani Eftekhari, spent more than a year behind bars after pleading guilty to a charge of conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the Iranian Transaction Regulations, which forbid trade with Iran. The Iranian-born engineer maintains his innocence and says he agreed to the guilty plea in exchange for authorities dropping more serious charges on the advice of his lawyer — and out of fear he could face up to 55 years in prison. "I was very scared — 55 years. For what? For what? What did I do?" he said in an exclusive interview with CBC News, now back home in B.C. Tried to purchase high-tech equipment Rohani, a management executive at a Vancouver-based company called Sutcast Foundry Technologies, arrived in San Antonio, Texas, on Sept. 18, 2006, to buy a magnetostrictive sensor, a machine worth $72,000 that uses ultrasonic waves to look for cracks and other flaws in metal pipes. As he was signing documents for the purchase from the Southwest Research Institute, FBI agents swarmed the building. "As soon as I sign it, FBI from window and door. Five people came and arrested me. At first I couldn't talk. What's going on, what's happened?" he recalled. According to the institute's website, the equipment can be used to inspect large structures such as the steel liners in containment buildings of nuclear power plants. In a sworn affidavit, a U.S. Customs special agent cites e-mail correspondence to support allegations that Rohani planned to ship the equipment to an engineering company in Tehran. Rohani said the e-mail exchange was with business partners in Iran who had tried unsuccessfully tried to buy a similar piece of equipment. But he denies allegations he was going to act as a middleman. He says he already owned a similar device, purchased in Quebec, and was looking to use the new one for contracts to examine oil pipelines in Alberta and China. Accused of being a terrorist by cellmates When Rohani was arrested, he says, he was put behind bars alongside drug dealers and violent offenders with ties to the Mexican mafia who demanded protection money and called him a terrorist. His court-appointed lawyer convinced him to take the plea deal. "The trial is going to maybe take two or three years … and if you lose, lifetime in prison," he said the lawyer told him. "So I am a logical person," Rohani said. Since returning to Canada nearly two weeks ago, Rohani says he still wakes up thinking he's in the U.S. jail. He says he hopes others don't also end up behind bars because of what he describes as overzealous prosecutors, and that Canadians should know that even innocent ties to countries such as Iran, North Korea and Syria could land them behind bars in the U.S.

Oh FFS... they were gonna give him 55 years because he was trying to get a device that scans cracks in metal pipes?

F'ing retarded, plain and simple.