DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran has sentenced French-Iranian academic Fariba Adelkhah to six years in prison on national security charges, her lawyer said on Saturday.
“The court has sentenced her to six years. We have appealed and if accepted, the sentence will drop to five years,” Adelkhah’s lawyer, Saeed Dehghan, told Reuters.
Iran dropped spying charges against Adelkhah but she remained in jail on other security-related charges, Dehghan said in March.
Iran has rejected France’s call to release Adelkhah, a 60-year-old anthropologist who has been detained since June 2019, saying the demand is an interference in Tehran’s internal affairs.
Tehran does not recognise dual nationality.
In March, Iran released Adelkhah’s partner, French academic Roland Marchal, who was imprisoned in Iran since June last year.
Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards have arrested dozens of dual nationals over recent years, mostly on espionage charges.
(Reporting by Dubai Newsroom; Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Sam Holmes and Frances Kerry)
