Iran accused the British couple Craig and Lindsay Foreman of espionage, accusing them of collaborating with Western intelligence services, after their arrest last month, the judiciary said Tuesday.
Judicial spokesman Asghar Jahangir said it was alleged that the couple entered Iran “making tourists pass” and gathered information before their arrest in the southeast province of Kerman.
The Mizan online website of the Judiciary cited Kerman’s president, Ebrahim Hamidi, saying that the couple’s links had been confirmed to foreign intelligence services.
“Additional research is still ongoing,” Hamidi added.
Jahangir was summoned by saying that they had been arrested by the body of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard of Iran in “spying charges.”
Foremen were accused of collecting “information from several provinces” and “cooperating with covert institutions linked to the intelligence services of hostile and western countries,” said the spokesman.
He BBC He had reported that the couple was just over 50 years old and on a motorcycle trip around the world when they were arrested in January.
According to publications on social networks, they crossed Iran from Armenia in December and gradually addressed Australia.
Europeans held in Iran
On Friday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Great Britain said it was “providing consular assistance to two British citizens arrested in Iran” and was in contact with the Iranian authorities.
Last week, Iran’s official IRNA The news agency said that British ambassador Hugo Shorter met with the couple in Kerman’s prosecutor’s office.
The agency also published a photo of the meeting, with the faces of the blurry couple.
The British government advises all trips to Iran.
Several other Europeans are arrested in Iran, which has carried out multiple exchanges of prisoners with Western governments in recent years.
In January 2023, Iran announced the execution of the double British-Iranian citizen Alireza Akbari, which caused outrage among Western governments, including Britain, which described him as “barbaric.”
Akbari had been convicted of spying on Britain.
In January, Iran liberated the Italian journalist Cecilia Sala, who was arrested the previous month for “violating the Law of the Islamic Republic.”
His release occurred days before Italy released Iranian citizens Mohammad Abedini, who was arrested in Milan in December at the request of the United States.
The United States accused him of violating the sanctions of the United States and supplying a sophisticated drone navigation technology to the military of Iran. Iran had denied any link between the cases of Sala and Abedini.
The French couple Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris have been imprisoned since May 2022 for espionage charges, a capital crime in Iran.
In June, Iran launched two Swedes, one of them as a diplomat of the European Union, in exchange for a former official held in Sweden, in an exchange mediated by Oman.
In 2023, Oman also negotiated the release of six European detainees in Iran, including the Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele, who had been sentenced by espionage and spent more than a year in custody.
