Cleared of the charges of espionage and propaganda which weighed against him, the French tourist cannot however leave prison. Which is illegal.
By Armin Arefi
Published on
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Shis name had been called from the loudspeakers by the prison authorities. His personal effects had been collected and his van was even to be returned to him. After three years of incarceration in the Vakilabad prison in Mashhad, the ordeal of Frenchman Benjamin Brière was finally about to end. Sentenced in January 2022 to eight years and eight months in prison for “espionage” and “propaganda” against the Islamic Republic by a revolutionary court, this 37-year-old tourist, arrested in May 2020 while handling a recreational drone in a nature park in the north-east of the country, had his sentence overturned by the Supreme Court, before being cleared of all charges against him by the 35th branch of the Khorasan provincial court of appeal Razavi, on February 15. Its president Seyed Hossein Ahmadi Golban even apologized to his lawyer for the “error” that his arrest constituted.
The release of Benjamin Brière was only a matter of hours. The order had been sent to prison officials and his lawyer had even been contacted to pick him up. However, the French tourist never showed up when he left Vakilabad prison. Symbol of the arbitrariness that reigns in the Islamic Republic, he will have to be retried for the same charges of “espionage” and “propaganda” against the State by the same court of appeal on June 12. An aberration in terms of Iranian law, the judge’s decision being supposed to be final.
Incredible
“This is the first time that I have personally witnessed in the judicial system a case where the appeals chamber makes a decision and issues an order of execution and release [de mon client] and that I receive at the same time a summons as a lawyer calling on me to appear again before the Court of Appeal for my client on June 12, “said Mr.e Mahmoud Behzadi Rad in an interview with the Iranian news site Emtedadnews. “We didn’t appeal at all! The case went to the Supreme Court of the country and was transferred to an equivalent tribunal, and the order for my client’s release was issued. If this regrettable initiative becomes the norm within the justice system, then nothing holds. »
URGENT- #BenjaminBrière French hostage detained in Iran was acquitted of all the charges against him by the 35th chamber of the Mashhad Court of Appeal, (verdict below) however according to his lawyer Maître Behzadi he is still illegally detained in prison . pic.twitter.com/1MVKNNvHUo
— letters from Tehran (@LettresTeheran) March 2, 2023
Incredibly, this judicial twist illustrates once again the political dimension of this affair. Benjamin Brière is indeed one of the seven French nationals detained in Iran and designated by France as “State hostages” in the hands of the Islamic Republic, which has made a specialty of arresting Western citizens on its territory for better exert political pressure on their country of origin. Also, it appears at first glance that Judge Seyed Hossein Ahmadi Golban, president of the thirty-fifth chamber of the Khorasan Razavi province appeal court, took his decision to acquit Benjamin Brière “only” on the basis of law, “forgetting” in passing the political nature of his case in the eyes of certain Iranian security services. His surprising about-face, ten days after clearing the French tourist, suggests that he may have been under pressure.
Hunger-strike
Spearhead of the support committee for Benjamin Brière, his sister Blandine Brière does not wish to enter into these considerations in any way. “We have received the official judgment dated February 15 from the appeal court stating that my brother is acquitted and we do not understand, therefore, what he is still doing in prison, she told the Point. Benjamin entered his second month of hunger strike on February 28, she recalls with concern. He has lost a lot of weight and remains weak. Six other French nationals are currently detained in the Islamic Republic. Their names are Fariba Adelkhah, Cécile Kohler, Jacques Paris, Louis Arnaud and Bernard Phelan (a seventh French national was arrested last fall, but his name has not filtered).
READ ALSO“French hostage in Iran, my sister is cut off from the world”Arrested in June 2019, the Franco-Iranian researcher Fariba Adelkhah was released to everyone’s surprise on February 10 from Evin prison in Tehran. However, it is not known at this stage under what conditions, and whether she will be able to recover her passport and leave Iran.