Australia releases Iranian student detained for 13 months

An Iranian student detained in Australia for 13 months on accusations of circumventing US sanctions on military equipment has returned to Tehran after being released, state television reported Saturday.

Reza Dehbashi, a PhD student at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, had been arrested on allegations of "attempting to purchase and transfer advanced American military radar equipment via Dubai to Iran", the television's website said.

"Australia's legal system intended to extradite Mr. Dehbashi to America, but he was eventually released" as Iran's foreign ministry had "resolved" the issue, it added. 

State television showed footage of what it said was Dehbashi arriving at Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport and hugging a tearful woman apparently from his family.

It said Dehbashi had been working on a "skin cancer detection device" at the time of his arrest and that he had dismissed the charges as "a misunderstanding" and "unfair".

News of his return came hours after Canberra said an Australian travel-blogging couple had flown home after being released by the Islamic republic.

According to Iran's judiciary, Perth-based Jolie King and Mark Firkin were alleged to have used a drone to take pictures of "military sites and forbidden areas".

Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said the pair had been reunited with their family in Australia following "very sensitive negotiations" with Iran.

Several British nationals with Iranian backgrounds are held as Iran and the UK have been discussing the possible release of some 400 million pounds held by London since the 1979 Islamic Revolution for a tank purchase that never happened.

British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is currently serving a five-year prison sentence for allegedly planning the "soft toppling" of Iran's government while traveling with her young daughter.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who works for the charity arm of Thomson Reuters, was arrested in April 2016. Her sentence and her treatment while in prison have been widely criticised.

Iran does not recognise dual nationalities, cases involving which typically end up in closed-door hearings of Iran's Revolutionary Court, where former detainees say they had no opportunity to defend themselves against spying charges or offer evidence.

Analysts and family members of dual nationals and others detained in Iran long have said hard-liners in the Islamic Republic's security agencies use the prisoners as bargaining chips in negotiations with the West.

A UN panel in 2018 described "an emerging pattern involving the arbitrary deprivation of liberty of dual nationals" in Iran, which Tehran denied.

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