Iran: Paris confirms the detention of a Frenchman
Mashhad Prison, Iran (Illustrative Image).
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2 min
French authorities confirmed on Wednesday that a French national has been detained in Iran since May last year, without a known reason.
This is a new subject of dispute between Paris and Tehran as France has been demanding for months the return of a researcher placed under house arrest after being sentenced.
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A 35-year-old tourist arrested in May 2020 while driving his van in Iran in a desert region near the border with Turkmenistan, that's about all we know of the French national whose detention Paris confirmed on Wednesday, following information from the weekly
Le Point.
The man is currently being held in Mashhad, in the northeast of the country, where he was able to receive visits from French diplomats stationed in Tehran.
An Iranian lawyer has been appointed for his defense and the latter deplores "
illegal detention
" and "
contradictory and false accusations
".
A new thorny issue therefore between Paris and Tehran while the Franco-Iranian
academic Fabriba Adelkhah
has been deprived of liberty since June 2019. Sentenced to 5 years in prison, she was able to leave her cell last October but remains under house arrest in the Iranian capital.
In recent years, many foreign nationals or binationals have been arrested in Iran and some of them have been freed through exchange operations allowing the return of Iranians detained abroad.
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