The fate of Benjamin Brière, like that of other Westerners held in “hostages”, could depend on the discussions on the Iranian nuclear file.
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The French Benjamin Brière, in detention in Iran for eighteen months, was sentenced to eight years and eight months in prison, announced, Tuesday, January 25, his French and Iranian lawyers, for “espionage” and “propaganda “Against the Islamic Republic. “This condemnation, that nothing allows to support, is unacceptable,” said the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs immediately.
Originally from Lyon, Benjamin Brière, who has always been a tourist, had been arrested in May 2020 in northeastern Iran, near the border with Turkmenistan, for taking “photographs Prohibited zones “with a leisure drone. One of his Iranian lawyers, Said Dehghan, maintains that this drone was a simple device, often used in Iran to photograph landscapes or ceremonies such as weddings.
“We are shocked, explains the lawyer, joint by Le Monde. An hour before the start of the trial, Thursday, January 20, the Tribunal Chamber and the judge responsible for the file changed. In addition, Benjamin was sentenced for “espionage through collaboration with an enemy state of the Islamic Republic”, punishable by one to ten years of imprisonment, while it was supposed to be judged for “espionage through the taking of photographs” , punishable by three years in prison. These last-minute changes, all in my client’s unfavoring, are incredibly illegal. “
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Apart from Benjamin Brière – the only known Western imprisoned in Iran not to have an Iranian passport – France is also concerned by the fate of the Anthropologist Fariba Adelkhah. Arrested in 2019, the Franco-Iranian researcher was sentenced to five years in prison for “propaganda” and “collusion with a view to undermining national security”. Assigned to residence in the home of his relatives in Tehran since October 2020, she was again incarcerated, mid-January, on the grounds that she would not have respected the conditions of her assignment.
Benjamin Brière, he is detained in Vakil Abad Prison in Machhad (Northeast). In December 2021, he started a hunger strike to protest the bad conditions of his detention, including his deprivation of the right to call his loved ones for Christmas holidays.
The condemnation of French intervenes, while Iran is negotiating in Vienna, and that of the United States, in the agreement on the Iranian nuclear file. In 2018, former US President Donald Trump had torn the “deal”, signed three years earlier, in the Austrian capital, between Tehran, Washington, London, Paris, Moscow, Beijing and Berlin. Since then, the Islamic Republic of Iran has taken over a large part of its nuclear activities. With the arrival at Joe Biden’s White House, the talks have started again, beginning 2021, between Iran and the parties involved, to try to save the agreement.
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