Iran says citizen arrested in France conditionally released

Iranian citizen Mahdieh Esfandiari, who was arrested in France in February accused of promoting terrorism on social media, has been conditionally released, the Iranian foreign ministry said Wednesday.

The decision to free her under judicial supervision was confirmed by the prosecutors’ office in Paris, which said it had urged the court to keep her detained.

France and Iran have discussed the release of Esfandiari in exchange for Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris, a French couple detained by Iran, with Iran’s foreign minister saying last month that a deal was in “its final stages”.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei “welcomed the decision” to conditionally release Esfandiari in a statement, adding that Tehran was working on her return home.

Born in Iran, Esfandiari had lived in France since 2018, graduating from the University of Lyon and working as a translator.

The conditions of her release require her to report to a police station regularly and prohibit her from leaving the country pending a trial scheduled to open on January 13.

They also ban her from accessing social media.

Contacted by AFP, Esfandiari’s lawyer, Nabil Boudi, confirmed that “the prosecutor strongly opposed” the release, citing “the risk of flight”.

‘Far too long’

However, the court “accepted our argument and considered that the pre-trial detention had been far too long given the alleged facts”.

Esfandiari has not commented on the substance of the allegations against her and “is eagerly awaiting” her trial to explain herself, Boudi said.

“We are satisfied, she will finally be able to prepare her defense,” he added.

Kohler, 41, and Paris, 72, were arrested in May 2022.

They are among a number of Europeans still held by Iran in what several European governments, including France, describe as a deliberate strategy of hostage-taking by Tehran to extract concessions from the West.

“The French state is responsible, every day that goes by, for the survival of Cecile and Jacques,” Noemie Kohler, Cecile’s sister, told reporters earlier this month.

At her January trial, Esfandiari will have to answer charges of online advocacy and incitement to terrorism, as well as racial hatred and criminal conspiracy, following an investigation into Telegram accounts called “Axis of Resistance”.

Iran has insisted that Esfandiari’s detention on February 28 in Villeurbanne was arbitrary, while saying that the French couple were spying in Iran.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said last month that a deal to exchange Esfandiari for Kohler and Paris was nearly complete.