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IRAN: FRENCH-IRANIAN ACADEMIC FARIBA ADELKHAH SENTENCED TO SIX YEARS IN PRISON
May 21, 2020: Iran has sentenced French-Iranian academic Fariba Adelkhah to six years in prison on national security charges, her lawyer said on 16 May 2020. "The branch 15 of Tehran's Revolutionary Court has sentenced her to five years jail for gathering and conspiring against Iran's national security. She was also sentenced to one year jail term for propaganda against the Islamic Republic. We have appealed and if accepted, the sentence will drop to five years," Adelkhah's lawyer, Saeed Dehghan, told Reuters.
Iran dropped spying charges against Adelkhah but she remained in jail on other security-related charges, Dehghan said in March. Iran has rejected France’s call to release Adelkhah, a 60-year-old anthropologist who has been detained since June 2019, saying the demand is an interference in Tehran’s internal affairs.
Tehran does not recognise dual nationality.
In March, Iran released Adelkhah’s partner, French academic Roland Marchal, who was imprisoned in Iran since June last year. Marchal was released after France freed Iranian engineer Jalal Ruhollahnejad, held over alleged violations of United States sanctions against Tehran.
A French court in May 2019 approved the extradition of Ruhollahnejad to the US to face charges of attempting to illegally import US technology for military purposes on behalf of an Iranian company which US officials said was linked to Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRCG). (Source: Reuters, 16/05/2020)
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