A French pair released by Iran after over three years in prison on espionage charges their families vehemently denied were on Wednesday awaiting permission to be allowed to return to France and end their ordeal.

Meanwhile an Iranian citizen arrested in France in February on charges of promoting “terrorism” on social media, and who Tehran had said could be swapped in the case, was now at Iran’s embassy in Paris, the Iranian foreign minister said.

Cecile Kohler, 41, and Jacques Paris, 72 were arrested in May 2022 at the end of a trip to Iran that their families say was purely touristic in nature.

They were freed from Tehran’s Evin prison late on Tuesday in what the Iranian authorities described as a conditional release and immediately taken by French diplomats to France’s mission in Tehra

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