Kylie Moore-Gilbert has been freed from her Iranian hellhole, in a prisoner swap involving three Iranians, two of whom are convicted terrorists.
Dr Moore-Gilbert was pictured with a headscarf and mask and looking bewildered just hours after being taken from Evin prison into the care of embassy officials on Wednesday.
Foreign minister Marise Payne confirmed Dr Moore-Gilbert’s release this morning.
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“I am extremely pleased and relieved to advise that Dr Kylie Moore Gilbert has been released from detention in Iran and will soon be reunited with her family,’’ Senator Payne said.
She wished Dr Moore-Gilbert well in her recovery and her return to life in Australia.
“No doubt as she recovers she will draw on the same strength and determination that helped her get through her period of detention,’’ Senator Payne said.
Senator Payne also commended the “endurance, trust and resilience of Dr Moore-Gilbert’s family, friends and university colleagues throughout this period’’.
Australian foreign minister Payne confirms the release of Kylie Moore-Gilbert from Iran: '' No doubt as she recovers she will draw on the same strength and determination the helped get her through her period of detention''. @FreeKylieMG @IAmAnaDiamond pic.twitter.com/rGmF2lCqMi
— Jacquelin Magnay (@jacquelinmagnay) November 25, 2020
She said the release of the Melbourne academic had been an “absolute priority’’ for the government since her detention over two years ago and that the Australian government has consistently rejected the grounds on which the Iranian government arrested, detained and convicted her. Senator Payne added: “We will continue to do so’’.
She said the release was achieved through diplomatic engagement with the Iranian government and it demonstrated the value of professional and determined work to resolve complex and sensitive consular cases.
“I thank those dedicated officials and all others involved for their efforts,’’ she said.
Iranian officials had earlier confirmed the news through a release to the Young Journalist Club, which is affiliated to Iran state television saying: “An Iranian businessman and two Iranian citizens who were detained abroad on baseless charges were exchanged for a dual national spy named Kylie Moore-Gilbert, who worked for the Zionist regime’’.
Here are some pics of a stunned Kylie Moore-Gilbert from @YJC_agency So happy for all the people who agitated to help, and the hard working Australian embassy in Iran. @FreeKylieMG @IAmAnaDiamond pic.twitter.com/2ZbNOkBH0P
— Jacquelin Magnay (@jacquelinmagnay) November 25, 2020
Footage of the prison swap shows Dr Moore-Gilbert waiting in a diplomatic compound, sitting on a chair and adjusting her face mask while three men are ceremoniously escorted into the room draped in the Iranian flag and laurels and presented with flowers by Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi.
One of the men is in a wheelchair without legs and all are wearing caps. Two of the men appeared to be Saeid Moradi, who had his legs blown off when a bomb he was trying to throw at Thai police detonated in 2012 and his associate Mohammad Kharzei who was sentenced to jail for 15 years. The pair were convicted of a plot to assassinate Israeli diplomats in Bangkok.
At that point Dr Moore-Gilbert, holding a blue tote bag, is ushered by Australian embassy officials, including the ambassador to Iran Lyndall Sachs, into a waiting white van. It is uncertain if Dr Moore-Gilbert has been able to immediately leave Iranian soil, or if she is in the protection of the Australian embassy in Tehran.
It this proves true, 2020 has made the mother of all comebacks! https://t.co/33KjKiSMDd
— Free Kylie Moore-Gilbert (@FreeKylieMG) November 25, 2020
Dr Moore-Gilbert has spent 804 days in various Iranian jails, including the notorious Qarchak prison in the desert after being sentenced to 10 years for spying in late 2018. She had been arrested at Tehran airport while boarding a flight home to Melbourne after attending an academic tour.
Activists who have been agitating for the release of political prisoners such as Dr Moore-Gilbert and other dual nationals such as Nazarin Ratcliffe were “incredibly happy at the news’’.
Ana Diamond, who was released from death row at Evin prison in 2016 said that Dr Moore-Gilbert would be “in disbelief’’.
“It won’t hit her until she has cleared Iranian airspace and then it will dawn on her that the nightmare is over,’’ Ms Diamond said.
Another political prisoner Jason Rezaian said: “I am thrilled to see that Dr Moore-Gilbert is finally free after over two years as a hostage of the regime in Iran. As happy as I am, I know the trauma and bewilderment in her face all too well, I wish her health, recovery, privacy and patience’’.
Ms Diamond, who formed the advocacy group Alliance of Families Against State Hostage Taking after being held on death row in Evin Prison in 2016 before being released months later told The Australian: “We are still quite surprised to be honest, it’s what we had been hoping and it is so wonderful of course.
“We are hoping the same can apply for other dual British nationals Nazanin (Zaghari-Ratcliffe) and Anoosheh Ashoori.’’
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe has served a full five year sentence for spying but has been charged with more offences, while Ashoori was sentenced to 12 years for spying in 2019.
Ms Diamond believes that the timing of Dr Moore-Gilbert’s release may have been deliberate to deflect negative attention away from developments in the case of another academic, Swedish-Iranian Ahmad Reza Jalali. Dr Jalali, 49, was arrested after also being invited on a study tour in 2016 in his area of expertise, disaster medical management and this week Amnesty International reported he was transferred to solitary confinement in Evin Prison and was told he was to be “imminently executed’’.
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Europe
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2020-11-25 19:10:26Z
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