Fariba Adelkhah: French academic ‘jailed for six years’ in Iran

(UTV | COLOMBO) – A French-Iranian academic has been jailed for six years by a court in Iran, according to her Tehran lawyer.

Fariba Adelkhah was sentenced to five years for conspiring against national security and one year for propaganda against the state, Saeid Dehghan said.

But he added that he expected her to only have to serve the longer term.

The 61-year-old anthropologist and researcher at Sciences Po university in Paris was detained in June along with her French colleague Roland Marchal.

Mr Marchal was released in March this year as part of a prisoner swap.

The French authorities freed Jalal Rohollahnejad, an Iranian engineer who was being held over accusations that he violated US sanctions against Iran.

In recent years, Iran has arrested dozens of foreign and dual nationals on national security charges. Some, including British-Iranian charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, are on temporary release because of the coronavirus pandemic.

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