French President Nicolas Sarkozy is working to secure the release of a French academician standing trial in Tehran over espionage charges, his office says.
- The 24-year-old French teaching assistant Clotilde Reiss as well as French embassy staffer Nazak Afshar are among hundreds of defendants tried on various charges of espionage after the re-election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the June 12 poll triggered widespread protests across the country.
- Reiss, a lecturer at the Isfahan Technical University, told an Iranian court on Sunday that she had written about Iran's nuclear power program as well as the post-vote developments for the French Embassy in Tehran. France has denied that Reiss was a spy.
- Iran blames foreign countries of inciting the violent post-election unrest. France, for its part, denies the charges.
- "Do you think my country would be so naive and shorthanded as to send a 23-year-old woman to spy in Iran? That's stupid, it's not possible," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told reporters during a recent visit to Lebanon.
- However, in an interview with a French paper, Kouchner defended its Tehran embassy's readiness to give refuge to injured Iranian protesters fleeing police.
- Source:Press Tv
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