 The two men were released from prison and flown back to the United States via Oman on September 21, 2011, following a 10 billion rial (about US$930,000) bail-for-freedom deal posted by Oman.Once Fattal and Bauer were back on American soil, the Israeli newspaper "Haaretz" reported that Joshua Fattal's Iraqi-born Jewish father, Jacob, had emigrated to Israel as a child and later came to the United States, where he married Fattal's mother, Laura.In an effort not to draw attention to their ties with Israel after Josh's arrest, the family decided that rather than having his father involved in public efforts for Josh's release, the task would go to Josh's brother, Alex, a doctoral student at Harvard University, and to Josh's mother, Laura, who was born in the United States.