He claims that two Frenchmen who were detained in Iran in May made “confessions” to espionage that were published on Thursday by the official Al-Alam TV website in Arabic.
A French-speaking lady on the video identifies herself as Cecile Koller and explains that she works as an intelligence officer for the General Directorate of External Security (DGSO), France’s foreign intelligence agency.
According to the French press agency, Iran announced the arrest of two Europeans on May 11 who had “entered the country with the purpose of generating havoc and disrupting society.”
The French government demanded their “prompt release” and denounced the detention of the French, calling it “baseless.”
Tehran charged two “French trade unionists” detained in May with “compromising the security of the country” at the beginning of July.
“They were Cécile Koller, a representative of the National Union of Teachers-Workforce, and her husband, Jacques Barry, according to a French union source at the time.
He added that when they were detained, they were touring tourist destinations in Iran over the Easter break.
The woman claimed to be in Iran with her husband in the audio that was made public on Thursday “to foster the circumstances necessary for the revolution and removal of the Iranian government.
She claimed that they supported strikes and protests and, when required, utilised force against the police.
The General Directorate of External Security seeks to “pressure the administration” of Iran, according to the man who appeared in the video and talked in French.
In what NGOs perceive as a hostage-taking strategy to win concessions from other countries, more than a dozen Western people, the most of whom are dual nationalities, are being detained or imprisoned in Iran.
Among them are Benjamin Briar, who was arrested in May 2020 and sentenced to eight years and eight months in prison for espionage, which he disputes, and French-Iranian scholar Fariba Adelkhah, who was detained in June 2019 and sentenced to five years in prison for undermining national security.
Two detained Frenchmen’s purported confessions are broadcast on Iranian state TV.
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