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Iran charges three detained Australians with spying
TEHRAN, Sept 17, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Iran has charged three detained
Australians with spying, a judiciary spokesman said on Tuesday, after the
reported arrest of a travel-blogging couple and an academic.
Two of the Australians were alleged to have used a drone to take pictures
of military sites, while a third was accused of spying for another country,
spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili told reporters.
It was the first official confirmation that Australians have been detained
in Iran after the families of three of them said last week they had been
arrested in the Islamic republic.
They identified them as a travel-blogging couple Jolie King and Mark
Firkin and Melbourne University lecturer Kylie Moore-Gilbert.
“The news is correct,” Esmaili said in a video posted on the state
television website, adding the matter involved two separate cases.
“One case is of two people taking photos of military sites and our
forbidden areas,” the judiciary spokesman said.
The pair had been identified at the time and images were found on a drone
they were using, he added.
The other case involved an individual accused of “spying for another
country”, said Esmaili.
“Criminal charges have been issued for both cases and they are waiting for
their trial,” he said.
“It will be the court that rules if they are guilty and need to be
sentenced or whether to issue another verdict.”
It is unclear from official sources in Iran when the three Australians
were arrested and where they are being held.
– Prisoner swap? –
Canberra, which first revealed three of its citizens had been detained in
Iran on September 11, has said it is providing consular assistance for the
three detainees.
Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said there was “no reason” to
believe the arrests were politically motivated.
The travel-blogging couple had been documenting their journey on social
media for the past two years but went silent about 10 weeks ago after posting
updates from Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan.
The family of Moore-Gilbert said on Saturday that she had been held in
Iran for a “number of months”.
The academic specialises in Middle East politics with a focus on Gulf
states.
Their indictments come after Tehran’s top diplomat Mohammad Javad Zarif in
April raised the case of Negar Ghodskani, an Iranian woman arrested by
Australia in 2017.
At the time, Zarif proposed Iranians jailed in the United States or other
countries on extradition requests issued by the Americans could be swapped
for US citizens held in Iran.
Ghodskani has since been extradicted to the United States and confessed to
participation in a conspiracy to illegally export technology to Iran in
breach of sanctions, according to the US Justice Department’s website.
Australia said in August it would join a US-led naval coalition to escort
commercial ships in the Gulf, after a spate of attacks blamed on Iran but
that Tehran denied.
However, that announcement is believed to have come after the arrest of
the three Australians in Iran.
BSS/AFP/BZC/2000HRS