French-Iranian academic held in Iran since 2019 back in France: supporters

French-Iranian academic Fariba Adelkhah has returned to France, her university said Wednesday, after having been held for nearly five years in Iran in a case that added to tensions between Paris and Tehran.

Fariba Adelkhah was jailed in Tehran in June 2019 and released in February 2023, but banned from travelling abroad. She finally returned to France on 18 October 2023. RFI/Persian

Adelkhah, who was arrested in June 2019 and convicted on national security charges, had been released from prison in February but had been unable to leave Iran.

She landed back in Paris on Tuesday, according to Sciences Po University, where she worked as a researcher, and which had set up a support group to win her release.

Roland Marchal, Adelkhah partner and collegue, who was detained with her in 2019, was released in March 2020.

In May 2023, two other French citizens had been freed from their prison in the northeastern city of Mashhad: French-Irish Bernard Phelan, who had been held since October, and Benjamin Brière, whose ordeal in Iran lasted two years.

Currently, French citizens Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris, who were accused of spying in 2022 are still in an Iranian jail, as well as the 35-year old consultant Louis Arnaud, who was jailed in September 2022.

A petition calling for his release collected more than 100,000 signatures in two weeks in February.

A fourth French citizen, whose name was not released by France's foreign ministry, is in jail as well.

(With newswires)