While denying the charges, Paris apparently has freed an Iranian woman held on terrorism charges in exchange for Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris.
By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News
Iran has freed two French citizens held in prison for more than three years on charges of being Israeli spies, President Emmanuel Macron announced Tuesday night.
Cécile Kohler (41) and her partner Jacques Paris (72) were released from the notorious Evin Prison in Tehran and taken to the French Embassy in the capital.
Describing their release as “a huge relief,” Macron wrote on X, “I welcome this first step. Discussions are continuing to enable them to return to France as soon as possible.”
The two were on vacation in Iran in May 2022 when they were arrested on suspicion of spying for the Jewish state, a claim that both the French government and their families rejected as “unjustified and unfounded.”
After sitting in prison since then in conditions Paris compared to torture, they were convicted in court last month.
Without specifying who received which sentence, the Fars news agency reported that one received six years in prison for spying for France and the other received 10 years, while both received five years for conspiracy against national security and 20 years in exile for “intelligence cooperation” with Israel.
The BBC reported that “exile” has meant being “sent to remote areas” in other cases where this sentence was imposed.
France 24 said that Iranian political analysts are speculating that the couple’s freedom was granted in exchange for Mahdieh Esfandiari, an Iranian woman who had been in French detention since February on charges of online advocacy and incitement to terrorism, as well as racial hatred and criminal conspiracy.
Esfandiari had been scheduled to go on trial in January but was conditionally released last month, although the prosecutor’s office in Paris said it had recommended keeping her in detention because she was considered a flight risk.
The Iranians have described Esfandiari’s detention as “arbitrary,” the same term France consistently used to describe the arrests of Kohler and Paris.
According to the French channel, in reports on the release, Iranian media only quoted Macron as their source, with no accompanying comments from regime officials.
Still, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was quoted more than a month ago as saying that a deal to exchange the French detainees for an unnamed Iranian woman was “in its final stages.”
Israel has not made an official statement regarding the case, which was primarily a matter of diplomatic negotiation between Paris and Tehran.
Israeli officials did not take part in public discussions on the matter, and Jerusalem was not apparently involved in the deal that led to the French couple’s release.
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