“Olivier Rondeau is free.” Arrested in Iran since 2022, the Frenchman has been released and is back in France, announces Emmanuel Macron in a message posted in X. “Olivier Rondeau is free, in France, among his family! Decisive.
At 34, Olivier Rondeau had been arrested in October 2022 in southern Iran when he was doing tourism and imprisoned in Evin prison in Tehran. He had been sentenced for “espionage and conspiracy against the Islamic Republic” to five years in prison.
Arrested while taking photos, he said that from the victim of political blackmail between Iran and France.
In the French media, relatives Olivier Rumard regularly warned of their detention conditions, in a cell with another 18 prisoners. He, through recordings transmitted by his family, had continued proclaiming his innocence.
“In my situation, talking is risking. But as there is a risk, there is hope. But I have very little left. I am really very tired,” he said in an audio message transmitted by Radio France last January.
Two French still detained in Iran
Two other French, considered by the French authorities as “state hostages”, are still arrested in the same Tehran prison since May 2022, as the President of the Republic recalls in his message published in X.
“Our mobilization will not weaken: Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris must be released from Iranian prisons. All my thoughts go to them and their families on this day,” concludes Emmanuel Macron.
Source: BFM TV
