An Australian-British academic jailed for spying by Iran has been released after two “traumatic” years behind bars, in a swap for three Iranians linked to a botched Bangkok bomb plot.
Middle East academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert yesterday said that departing Iran was “bittersweet,” despite “injustices” endured during more than 800 days detained in the country’s toughest prisons.
“I came to Iran as a friend and with friendly intentions,” she said, praising the “warmhearted, generous and brave” Iranian people, despite what she called a “long and traumatic ordeal.”
Photo: Reuters
The 33-year-old was arrested in 2018 by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps after attending an academic conference in Qom.
She was later charged with espionage and sentenced to 10 years in jail.
Her release was secured as part of a prisoner swap for three men: Masoud Sedaghatzadeh, Mohammad Khazaei and wheelchair-bound Saeid Moradi, who blew off his own legs with homemade explosives.
All three were linked to a failed plot to assassinate Israeli diplomats in Thailand in 2012.
Thai corrections authorities yesterday confirmed that Sedaghatzadeh and Moradi were transferred back to Iran as prisoners, while Khazaei was granted a royal pardon in August.
The first images of a freed Moore-Gilbert emerged from Iranian state television on Wednesday, sparking elation from friends and family who had campaigned for her freedom, and maintained her innocence.
“We are relieved and ecstatic,” the family said in a statement. “We cannot convey the overwhelming happiness that each of us feel at this incredible news.”
In footage broadcast by Iran’s Irib news agency from Tehran airport, Moore-Gilbert was seen wearing a headscarf and a mask, accompanied by the Australian ambassador.
Seemingly aware of the camera, she removed the mask to confirm her identity.
Irib also showed footage of three men — one of them in a wheelchair — draped in Iranian flags and being greeted as heroes by officials, including the Iranian deputy foreign minister.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he had spoken to Moore-Gilbert and confirmed she would receive health and psychological support on her return to Australia.
“She is an amazing Australian who has gone through an ordeal that we can only imagine and it will be a tough transition for her,” he said at a virtual news conference.
INCURSION: After 13 PLA aircraft flew into Taiwan’s ADIZ, the US Department of State said that China should rather ‘engage in meaningful dialogue’ with Taiwan US President Joe Biden’s administration on Saturday urged China to stop placing military pressure on Taiwan, while calling on both sides of the Taiwan Strait to engage in peaceful dialogue. The statement by the US Department of State was issued after 13 Chinese military aircraft flew into Taiwan’s southwest air defense identification zone (ADIZ) on Saturday, the highest number observed in a single day this year, the Ministry of National Defense said. The air force scrambled fighter jets to monitor the Chinese aircraft, issuing radio warnings and mobilizing air defense assets until the planes left the ADIZ. The US “notes
‘INCREASED VIGILANCE’: A source of infection has not yet been found for the latest two cases in a hospital cluster, which should serve as a warning, Chen Shih-chung said A total of 2,991 people associated with a COVID-19 cluster infection at Taoyuan General Hospital have been put under home isolation, after an emergency expanded isolation order was issued on Sunday evening, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday. Fifteen people have so far tested positive in the cluster infection. The first case in the cluster (case No. 838) was reported on Jan. 12 — a doctor who treated an infected patient who had returned from the US. Contact tracing for the first 13 cases found connections to case No. 838, said Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who
CHANGE OF GUARD: Hsiao Bi-khim’s attendance at Joe Biden’s inauguration will come as a boost to those in Taiwan who feared that the new US administration would be less friendly than that of Donald Trump to the nation Representative to the US Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) is to attend US President Joe Biden’s swearing-in ceremony at the US Capitol after she was invited by the US Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, a news release issued by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) in the US said last night. The news came as a surprise as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had been reticent about the matter, while Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) members had accused the Democratic Progressive Party administration of hedging its bets on the Republican Party. Asked about when Hsiao received the invitation, the ministry did not
FAMILY UNIT: The CECC warned that the eldest sister of the latest case, who also has COVID-19, visited Taoyuan’s Chungping evening market on Tuesday and Wednesday The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported a domestic case of COVID-19, associated with a recent cluster infection at Taoyuan General Hospital, and two imported cases. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said that the latest case (No. 885) is a woman in her 50s, who is the third daughter of case No. 881, a man in his 90s. The woman is the main caregiver of her elderly father, who had been hospitalized earlier this month and was treated by a nurse (case No. 852) from Monday to Thursday last week, he said, adding that
RSS