Iranian researcher says he was jailed for refusing to work on military projects

Nature : On 30 January 2011, Omid Kokabee was arrested at the airport in Tehran, Iran, as he was about to leave the country after a visit. He was sentenced to 10 years in jail on 13 May 2012 for “cooperating with a hostile government.” Kokabee, who is an Iranian citizen, was a graduate student in laser physics at the University of Texas at Austin. Ever since his arrest, a number of international science and research organizations have called for Kokabee to be released or for him to be given a fair trial. In two lettersâmdash;one open and one privateâmdash;provided to Nature, Kokabee claims that since he began his graduate work in 2005, he has been repeatedly approached with job and research opportunities through the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. In the private letter he further states that at least one of those jobs was focused on laser-based isotope separation. Although isotope separation has medical and energy applications, it is also used in the development of nuclear weapons.