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May 17, 2010

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Iran lets French academic go home

Source: Agencies | May 17, 2010, Monday | Print Edition

A French teaching assistant who was arrested in Iran 10 months ago on spying charges headed home yesterday after a Tehran court commuted her prison term and gave her back her passport.

Clotilde Reiss, 24, was accused of aiding a Western plot to topple Iran's clerical regime after taking part in anti-government demonstrations last June following the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Her lawyer said on Saturday that a court had sentenced her to parallel 5-year prison terms, but commuted this to a fine of US$285,000, letting her leave the country, much to the relief of France which had always proclaimed her innocence.

Reiss was due to arrive in Paris on a French government plane later yesterday and was scheduled to meet President Nicolas Sarkozy at the Elysee Palace.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner hailed her release. "We have waited for Clotilde for a long time," he told Radio J.

Her release came less than two weeks after France refused to extradite to the United States an Iranian engineer, accused by Washington of illegally buying equipment for military use.

In addition, an Iranian serving life in a French jail for the 1991 murder of a former Iranian prime minister, is set to win parole tomorrow and be immediately expelled.

Kouchner denied there was any link between these decisions, saying the French justice system was independent.

"There was no horse trading," Kouchner told Radio J.

"There is no connection between these two Iranian cases, which were dealt with by the French justice system, and the freedom of our hostage," he added.

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