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An Iranian court sentenced Benjamin Brière, a Frenchman, to eight years in prison on spying charges on Tuesday. His Paris-based lawyer has denounced the trial as a “masquerade”.
Brière, who was arrested in May 2020 while travelling in Iran and is currently on hunger strike, was also given an additional eight-month sentence for propaganda against Iran’s Islamic system, his lawyer Philippe Valent said in a statement.
The 36-year-old Frenchman was on an overland trip across Asia when he was arrested in May 2020 near the Turkmenistan-Iran border and accused of spying.
Brière had been travelling around Iran in a van, hoping to explore the country’s roads as he had done on similar trips around Scandinavia, the Balkans and Turkey. The journey, which he was documenting via Instagram, came to an abrupt halt when he was arrested by Iranian security forces in a deserted zone near the border with Turkmenistan.
In an interview with FRANCE 24 earlier this year, his sister, Blandine Brière, denied her brother was engaged in any spying activity. “He was just a tourist, and nothing can justify the fact that he has spent so much time in prison for no reason and with so little contact with his family,” she said. “There is no valid reason to keep him where he is. It’s wrongful confinement.”
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
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