Australian travel-bloggers freed in Iranian prisoner swap

Reza Dehbashi returns to Tehran following a 13-month detention in Australia on accusations of circumventing US sanctions on military equipment. (AFP)
Updated 06 October 2019
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Australian travel-bloggers freed in Iranian prisoner swap

  • An Iranian student held in Australia for 13 months on accusations of circumventing US sanctions on military equipment has also been released and returned home

SYDNEY: An Australian travel-blogging couple detained in Iran on spying charges have been released and returned home, Canberra said on Saturday, as an Iranian student was freed in Australia and flown back to Tehran.

Perth-based Jolie King and Mark Firkin had been documenting their journey from Australia to Britain on social media for the past two years, but went silent after posting updates from Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan about three months ago.

The pair, who have tens of thousands of followers on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, were alleged to have used a drone to take pictures of “military sites and forbidden areas,” an Iranian judiciary spokesman said last month.

Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said they were released after “very sensitive negotiations” and had been reunited with their family in Australia.

“We are extremely happy and relieved to be safely back in Australia with those we love,” the couple said in a statement issued by the Foreign Ministry in Canberra.

“While the past few months have been very difficult, we know it has also been tough for those back home who have been worried for us.”

Hours later, state media in Tehran reported that an Iranian student held in Australia for 13 months on accusations of circumventing US sanctions on military equipment had also been released and returned home.

Reza Dehbashi, a Ph.D. student at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, had been detained on allegations of “attempting to purchase and transfer advanced American military radar equipment via Dubai to Iran,” Iranian state television said on its website.

It said Dehbashi had been working on a “skin cancer detection device” at the time of his arrest and had dismissed the charges as “a misunderstanding” and “unfair.”

The channel showed footage of what it said was Dehbashi arriving at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport and hugging a tearful woman apparently from his family.

The Australian couple sought privacy, however.

They said in their statement that intense media coverage “may not be helpful” in the negotiations for the release of a third Australian detained in Iran in an unrelated case.

Melbourne University Academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert, who specializes in Middle East politics with a focus on Gulf states, had been detained for “some months” before King and Firkin were arrested.

Her case also came to light last month. Moore-Gilbert is accused by Iranian authorities of “spying for another country.”

Negotiations over the fate of the university lecturer are “very long term,” Payne said.

“She has been detained for some considerable time and has faced the Iranian legal system and has been convicted and sentenced,” the minister said.

“We don’t accept the charges on which she was convicted and we would seek to have her returned to Australia,” Payne added, declining to comment further on the case.

Payne has maintained the cases of those detained were not related to diplomatic tensions.

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 arrests.

News of the release of the King and Firkin comes just weeks after an Iranian woman arrested in Australia and sentenced in the US was returned home.

Negar Ghodskani was sentenced last month in Minneapolis to 27 months in prison for violating sanctions against Tehran, but was released following time served in custody in Australia and the US.

After her extradition to the US, she confessed to participation in a conspiracy to illegally export technology to Iran in breach of sanctions, according to the US Justice Department.

She was pregnant when she was arrested in 2017 in Australia where she was a legal resident. She gave birth while in Australian custody and her son was sent to Iran to live with his father.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in April floated a potential prisoner swap with a British-Iranian mother being held in Tehran.

He suggested exchanging Ghodskani for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, in jail in Tehran for alleged sedition.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe has also been separated from her daughter while in custody.


Explosion occurs at Turkish oil refinery during drills

Updated 53 min 21 sec ago
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Explosion occurs at Turkish oil refinery during drills

  • A fire was quickly brought under control by the privately owned company’s own emergency crews

ANKARA: An explosion occurred at an oil refinery in northwestern Turkey on Tuesday, an official said, adding the situation was “under control” and there were no reports of any casualties.
Mayor Tahir Buyukakin told private NTV television that the blast occurred at the Turkish Petroleum Refineries company, Tupras, in Izmit provicince during “routine drills.”
A fire was quickly brought under control by the privately owned company’s own emergency crews and no request for help was made, he said.
Video footage from the site showed smoke rising from the refinery.
It was not immediately clear what caused the explosion.


Lebanon media reports strike on residential building south of Beirut

Updated 05 November 2024
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Lebanon media reports strike on residential building south of Beirut

BEIRUT: Lebanese state media reported a strike on an apartment in the Jiyeh coastal area south of Beirut on Tuesday, more than a month into the Israel-Hezbollah war.
The official National News Agency said “a raid targeted a residential apartment in a building in the town of Jiyeh,” where an AFP correspondent said a large plume of grey smoke covered the area.


Iran says killed eight militants since attack on police in province bordering Pakistan

Updated 05 November 2024
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Iran says killed eight militants since attack on police in province bordering Pakistan

  • Militants from the Jaish Al-Adl group killed 10 police officers during a raid in Sistan-Baluchistan province on October 26
  • Sistan-Baluchistan, which straddles border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, is one of Iran’s most impoverished provinces

TEHRAN: Iran’s military has killed eight militants in an operation in the restive southeast since a deadly attack last month on a police station, state media reported Tuesday.
Militants from the Pakistan-based Jaish Al-Adl group killed 10 police officers during a raid on October 26 in Sistan-Baluchistan province — one of the deadliest attacks in the region in recent months.
Sistan-Baluchistan, which straddles the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, is one of Iran’s most impoverished provinces.
It has long been a flashpoint for cross-border attacks by separatists and extremists, opposed to the authorities in Iran.
Revolutionary Guards commander Ahmad Shafahi said “a total of eight terrorists have been killed” since the beginning of operations in the province, according to the official IRNA news agency on Tuesday.
“Fourteen other terrorists have been arrested,” including key figures involved in the attack, he said, adding security forces seized weapons and ammunition.
Shortly after the attack in Taftan county, some 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) southeast of the capital Tehran, a report on the Tasnim news agency said four militants had been killed and four others arrested.
Late on Monday, IRNA quoted Guards ground forces commander Mohammad Pakpour as saying the attackers “were not Iranian,” though he did not specify their nationalities.
In early October, at least six people including police officers were killed in two separate attacks in the province.
Jaish Al-Adl said on Telegram they had carried out the attacks.
Formed in 2012 by Baluch separatists, the group is proscribed as a “terrorist organization” by both Iran and the United States.
 
 


Over 100 patients to be evacuated from Gaza, WHO says

Updated 05 November 2024
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Over 100 patients to be evacuated from Gaza, WHO says

  • The patients will travel in a large convoy on Wednesday via the Kerem Shalom crossing

GENEVA: More than 100 patients including children suffering from trauma injuries and chronic diseases will be evacuated from Gaza on Wednesday in a rare transfer out of the war-ravaged enclave, a World Health Organization official said.
“These are ad hoc measures. What we have requested repeatedly is a sustained medevac (medical evacuation) outside of Gaza,” said Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, adding that 12,000 people were awaiting transfer.
The patients will travel in a large convoy on Wednesday via the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel before flying to the United Arab Emirates, he added, and then a portion will travel to Romania.


Iran says two French detainees held in good conditions

Updated 05 November 2024
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Iran says two French detainees held in good conditions

  • In recent years, Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards have arrested dozens of dual nationals and foreigners, mostly on charges related to espionage and security

DUBAI: Two French citizens detained in Iran since May 2022 are in good health and being held in good detention conditions, Iran’s judiciary spokesperson Asghar Jahangir said on Tuesday, according to state media.
Last month, France’s foreign ministry said the conditions that three of its nationals were being held in by Iran were unacceptable.
“According to the relevant authorities, these two people have good conditions in the detention center and are in good health, so any claim regarding their conditions being abnormal is rejected,” Jahangir said.
The spokesperson was referring to Cecile Koehler and Jacques Paris, who he said were arrested on charges of espionage and will have their next court hearing on Nov. 24.
Jahangir did not mention the third French national detained in Iran. French media have disclosed only his first name, Olivier.
In recent years, Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards have arrested dozens of dual nationals and foreigners, mostly on charges related to espionage and security.
Rights groups have accused Iran of trying to extract concessions from other countries through such arrests.