Iran said he was accused of “entering the country to sow chaos and destabilize society”.
Tehran:
The Fars news agency and state television said on Wednesday that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards arrested several foreign diplomats, including a Briton, accusing them of “espionage”.
“The Revolutionary Guards Intelligence Service has identified and arrested diplomats from foreign embassies spying on Iran,” said Fars, a British diplomat who was later expelled from the country.
State television, however, reported that the Briton, identified as Giles Whitaker, had been expelled from “the area” where diplomats were arrested in central Iran.
Details including the nationalities of the other diplomats, how many were arrested and the date of arrest were not immediately clear.
State television accused the British diplomat of “conducting intelligence operations” in areas where military maneuvers were carried out. The video showed images of a man posing as Whitaker speaking in a room.
Whitaker has been the deputy chief of mission in Tehran since 2018.
A state TV journalist said the diplomat was “among those who went to the Shahdad desert with their families”, referring to a region in central Iran.
“As the images suggest, this person took the pictures in a prohibited area, where a military exercise was taking place at the same time,” the broadcaster said.
State TV said “he was expelled from the area after apologizing”, although the Fars agency said he was “expelled from the country after apologizing”.
– The case of Belgium –
The news comes amid tensions as Iran and world powers struggle to agree a return to the 2015 nuclear deal.
It also comes as Belgium’s parliament on Wednesday approved a controversial prisoner-swap treaty with Iran in the first reading of a text that has yet to be submitted for a full vote.
Belgian Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborn told lawmakers on Tuesday that unless the treaty is ratified, “the danger to our Belgian interests and that of some Belgian citizens will increase”.
A Belgian humanitarian aid worker was seized in Iran on February 24 and has been in custody since, Quickenborn told lawmakers.
MPs and the Belgian man’s family identified him as 41-year-old Olivier Wendecastil.
Rights groups and media outlets covering Iran said it appeared to be another case of Tehran taking hostages in exchange for Iranians imprisoned in the West.
Many are held in Avin, a wing run by the intelligence service of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Among them is a Swedish academic who also has Iranian citizenship, Ahmedreza Jalali, who taught at the University of Brussels. Iran also accused Jalali of “espionage” and sentenced him to death.
Belgium last year convicted and imprisoned an Iranian diplomat for 20 years for plotting a bomb attack outside Paris in 2018.
– French Couple –
On Wednesday, Iran accused a French couple detained during a holiday in May of “undermining the security” of the country, the judicial authority said.
French teachers’ union official Cecil Koehler and his partner Jacques Paris were arrested in early May during the Easter holidays in the Islamic Republic. They have been accused by the authorities of trying to incite labor protests.
“The pair allege affiliation and collusion aimed at undermining the country’s security,” judiciary spokesman Masoud Setayishi told reporters in Tehran.
Iran said he was accused of “entering the country to sow chaos and destabilize society”.
The French government has condemned his arrest as “baseless” and demanded his immediate release.
Last month Amnesty International called on the British government to investigate the six-year detention of Iran’s dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, calling it “an act of hostage-taking”.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 43, who was first detained in Iran in 2016, returned to Britain in March after London agreed to pay off a longstanding debt to Tehran.
Amnesty has compiled a detailed analysis of the case, which it says contains “compelling evidence that the detention of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe by Iran is an act of hostage-taking”.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)