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A French couple who spent more than three years in an Iranian jail have arrived in Paris. Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris were arrested on espionage charges in 2022 while visiting Iran as tourists. They had been under house arrest at the French embassy in Tehran after being released from Evin prison, a notorious detention centre struck by an Israeli airstrike last November. The pair, described by Paris as “state hostages”, were released in exchange for an Iranian woman convicted in France for praising terrorism on social media. Iran has a long history of using dual nationals and western citizens as bargaining chips. These include five Americans released in 2023 in exchange for £4.8bn of frozen oil payments. A British couple were arrested last year while travelling through Iran on a motorbike trip. They remain behind bars.
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