Iran has released a teenager with French and German citizenship after he was cleared of spying charges.
Lennart Monterlos, 19, had disappeared during the 12-day war between Israel and Iran in June, while he was cycling alone in Iran on a Europe-to-Asia bike trip. It later emerged that he was being held by Iranian authorities.
France's Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot announced Mr Monterlos's release two days after his acquittal by an Iranian court was made public. He was expected to return to France on Thursday.
"Lennart Monterlos is free!", Mr Barrot wrote on social media. He said French diplomats had succeeded in their mission to "protect French citizens, wherever they may be", after lobbying Iranian authorities about the case.
"We are relieved that our son will return to us," Mr Monterlos's parents said in a written statement to AFP through their lawyer, Chirinne Ardakani.
Mr Monterlos was arrested on 16 June in the southern city of Bandar Abbas. Details of the espionage claims were never revealed, and his family had called on Iranian authorities to release him, arguing he was "innocent of everything".
An Iranian court issued a not guilty verdict after "taking into account legal principles and doubts about the crime", a judiciary website said on Monday.
The teenager, who has a German mother and a French father and grew up in France, was arrested as he was preparing to cross the border into Afghanistan, his Iranian visa about to expire.
France, which has several other citizens imprisoned in the Islamic republic, had condemned Mr Monterlos's detention as arbitrary.
French couple Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris, accused of spying for Israel, have been in detention in Iran for nearly three and a half years and face the death penalty.
"I have not forgotten Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris, whose immediate release we demand," Mr Barrot said.
Along with other European countries, France suspects Iran of taking citizens hostage to trade their freedom for concessions, notably on sanctions and its nuclear activities.
Ms Kohler and Mr Paris, who were on the last day of a tourist trip in May 2022, could be part of a potential prisoner swap for an Iranian woman held in France.
Mahdieh Esfandiari was arrested in France in February on charges of promoting terrorism on social media, according to French authorities.
Iran has repeatedly called her detention arbitrary but maintains that the French couple were spying on behalf of Israel. Mr Barrot said on Monday there were "strong prospects of being able to bring them back in the coming weeks".
