Tehran says the release of Bernard Phelan and Benjamin Briere, imprisoned for alleged espionage, is a “humanitarian action.”
Iran has released two French nationals, Bernard Phelan and Benjamin Briere, from a prison in the northeastern city of Mashhad, according to French President Emmanuel Macron.
“We will continue to work for the return of our compatriots who are still trapped in Iran,” Macron said on Twitter on Friday.
Ties between France and Iran have deteriorated in recent months with Tehran’s detention of six French nationals in what Paris has described as arbitrary arrests tantamount to state hostage-taking.
Catherine Colonna, France’s foreign minister, said in a separate statement that Phelan and Briere were on their way to France.
Iran’s foreign ministry described their release as a “humanitarian action”.
‘hostages’
Phelan, a 64-year-old French-Irish citizen, was sentenced in April to six and a half years in prison for “providing information to another country,” said his family, who were concerned about his ill health. The Paris-based travel consultant was arrested in October in Mashhad.
Phelan went on a dry hunger strike in January to protest his detention, but stopped the action at the request of his family, who feared he might die.
Briere, 37, had been detained in Iran since May 2020, when he was arrested after flying a remote-controlled mini-helicopter near the border between Turkmenistan and Iran.
An Iranian court sentenced him to eight years in prison in March on espionage charges.
He was later acquitted by an appeals court, but remained in prison in a situation his family called “incomprehensible”.
Like Phelan, Briere was detained in Vakilabad Jail in Mashhad and went on a hunger strike to protest his terms.
Four more French citizens, previously described as “hostages” by the French Foreign Ministry, are still imprisoned by Iran.