Tourist Benjamin Brière and consultant Bernard Phelan were released from prison and were able to leave the Islamic Republic on Friday. The end of a long ordeal.
By Armin Arefi
Published on
Subscriber-only audio playback
Ihe Iranian ordeal of Benjamin Brière is finally over. After three years of detention in the sinister Vakilabad prison in Mashhad, in northeastern Iran, the French tourist was released on Thursday May 11 and was able to leave Iran on Friday, the Quai d’ ‘Orsay.
Arrested in May 2020 while handling a recreational drone in a natural park in the region, this 37-year-old national, who was touring the country in a van, was sentenced in January 2022 to eight years and eight months in prison. imprisonment for “espionage” and “propaganda” against the Islamic Republic by a revolutionary court. But his sentence was later overturned, and the Frenchman cleared of all charges against him by an appeal court last February. This did not prevent the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological army of the Islamic Republic, from keeping him locked up in prison. READ ALSOWhy Iran is targeting France “It is a huge relief for us to witness the end of this ordeal”, reacts to the Point Blandine Brière, Benjamin’s sister. “We are reassured that Benjamin pulled through, both physically and psychologically. We narrowly avoided tragedy. To denounce his arbitrary detention, the Frenchman had not hesitated to repeatedly go on hunger strike. The last, which began on January 28, had considerably weakened him.
Benjamin Brière was released along with another fellow prisoner, Franco-Irish Bernard Phelan, with whom he shared his prison cell. Aged 64, this tourism consultant was in Iran as part of his professional activities, when he was arrested on October 3 in the midst of a crackdown on anti-regime demonstrations. Convicted of “providing information to an enemy country”, which he has always denied, the binational was sentenced last February to six and a half years in prison. Suffering from heart problems and bone pathology, the sexagenarian had seen his condition seriously deteriorate in detention, going so far as to threaten his life.
political affair
“We can’t tell you how relieved we are,” responded Bernard’s sister Caroline Phelan in a statement. “So many people have been involved in making this moment happen and we want to thank them all. » Greeted on their release from prison by the French diplomatic services, the two men were taken the same day to a hospital in Mashhad for examination. They embarked this Friday at 1:20 p.m. aboard a Falcon 900 from Airlec, a specialist in aeromedical transport, heading for Paris-Le Bourget airport where the plane shouldyou land at the end of the day.
READ ALSOThe great bargain of the French detained in Iran “During this detention in Mashhad prison, our compatriots and their relatives benefited from the permanent support of our diplomacy, in particular from our embassy in Tehran and from the Crisis and Support Center of the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs. Foreign Affairs,” French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said in a statement on Friday. Intense diplomatic negotiations have taken place in recent weeks around their fate, underlining the eminently political aspect of their case.
Exchange currencies
Since their arrest, the two Frenchmen were considered by the Islamic Republic as bargaining chips aimed at putting pressure on France to obtain concessions from Paris in return. Objective: to limit the room for maneuver of the French authorities in their criticism of government repression in Iran, but also to obtain the release of Assadollah Assadi, an Iranian diplomat-spy sentenced to twenty years in prison in Belgium for an attack project in Villepinte, and which Tehran wants to recover at all costs.
READ ALSOA mother’s fight to free her son imprisoned in IranThe latter could soon be transferred to Iran in exchange for Olivier Vandecasteele, a Belgian humanitarian sentenced to forty years in prison in Tehran for “espionage”, thanks to a mutual transfer treaty between Belgium and Iran. , which entered into force on April 18. Four other French people are currently being held in prison in Iran. They are tourists Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris, teacher unionists in France, imprisoned since May 7, 2022, traveler Louis Arnaud, arrested on September 28, 2022 in Tehran, and a fourth national imprisoned since last fall, and whose family prefers to conceal the name. A fifth French citizen, researcher Fariba Adelkhah, was released from prison on February 10 after being pardoned. But she still cannot leave the Islamic Republic. “We are obviously thinking today of the five other French people still held hostage in Iran,” concludes Blandine Brière.