Iranian presidential candidate: Fix economy by taking 1,000 Americans hostage

Mohsen Rezaei, a conservative candidate for the Iranian Presidency, said in a recent interview that his plan to boost the country’s ailing economy was to kidnap 1,000 Americans and demand several million dollars in ransom per hostage.

Iranian journalist and activist Masih Alinejad posted a video of Rezaei’s statement to Twitter.

“This is surreal. Mohsen Rezaei candidate for Iran presidential elections said he’d take 1000 more American hostages to boost iran’s economy. For every hostage he’d ask several (million dollars) as a solution to Iran’s failing economy,” she tweeted along with the hashtags #IraniansBoycottElections and #NotVotingForIR.

In the video, an anchor said in Farsi, “So he’d take hostages to extort money.”

The video cuts to a clip Rezaei who said, “We’ll take 1,000 Americans hostage. America will have to pay several billions to get every single one freed.”

“This is how we can solve our economic problems,” he added.

Rezaei was described by Saeid Jafari writing for the Atlantic Council as a “perpetual candidate” for the presidency.

He first ran for president in 2005. He also ran in 2009 and 2013.

Reza was the Iranian Republican Guard Corps commander-in-chief for 17 years.

In February, 2020, he said that Iran was looking for an excuse to destroy Tel Aviv as payback for the “martyrdom” of Revolutionary Guards Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, alleging Israeli involvement.

(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)