A German national has been in custody for a year, accused of gathering sensitive information of Iranian nuclear facilities, Iran has said for the first time.
Iran acknowledged on Saturday that a German cyclist had been detained on allegations of spying.
The man has been accused of recording and transmitting coordinates and locations of sensitive military and nuclear facilities, Iranian news agency Mehr reported.
The agency posted a video on Telegram purportedly showing the arrest of the young cyclist in the northwestern province of Markazi near the Arak nuclear facility.
He was reportedly arrested last year and has since been held in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, which holds foreign and political prisoners.
Germany’s foreign office has not yet commented on the news.
The revelation from the Iranian government comes in the midst of its conflict with Israel. On Saturday, French President Emmanuel Macron brought up the plight of French citizens detained in Iran, calling for their release.
Earlier this year, Iran released a German-Iranian women’s rights activist Nahid Taghavi, who was imprisoned for over four years of a 10- year sentence for “propaganda against the state.”
Taghavi, who lived in the German city of Cologne, was a vocal advocate of democratic and, particularly, women’s rights in Iran. She was detained while visiting Iran in 2020.
She was held in Evin prison, where she was tortured and put in solitary confinement during her imprisonment.
Edited by: Sean Sinico
DW News
