A young French academic who was held in Iran for 10 months on national security charges arrived back in Paris yesterday, the presidency said, as a government plane touched down outside the city.
The official Falcon 900 landed at Villacoublay airbase shortly after 1:20pm, after bringing 24-year-old Clotilde Reiss from Dubai, where she had flown overnight from Tehran following the conclusion of her trial.
Reiss was arrested last year on charges of spying on opposition protests, spent several weeks in Tehran’s notorious Evin jail and endured a televised show trial before being allowed to stay in the French embassy.
PHOTO: AFP
One of her first stops in Paris was the Elysee Palace, where she met with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Sarkozy thanked the leaders of Brazil, Senegal and Syria yesterday for their “active role” in securing Reiss’ release.
Her arrival brought an end to a long drama which raised tensions between France and Iran.
The release came after a French court ruled against a US extradition request for an Iranian engineer and shortly before another judge was to rule on the parole request of a jailed Iranian assassin.
But French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner insisted there had been “no haggling and no pay off” to ensure the release and said there had been no link between the French and Iranian cases.
“This series of judicial rulings — in France we don’t influence judges’ decision — has nothing to do with any haggling, any alleged bargaining,” he said, in an interview with Radio J.
Reiss was arrested on July 1 last year after demonstrations against the results of Iran’s disputed presidential election.
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