TEHRAN — An Iranian court on Monday announced the acquittal of Lennart Monterlos, a French-German national accused of espionage and arrested in June during the war between Israel and Iran.
The decision followed an earlier announcement by Tehran that it hopes for the imminent release of a French couple detained in Tehran since 2022 in exchange for the release of an Iranian woman arrested in France.
Monterlos, 19, was arrested on June 16 in the southern city of Bandar Abbas on the third day of the war, which Israel initiated with a wave of airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, which Jerusalem described as an imminent, existential threat.
The charges against the teenager, who was cycling alone across Iran on a Europe-to-Asia bike trip, were never officially disclosed.
His family had called on Iranian authorities to release him, arguing he was “innocent of everything.”
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“The Revolutionary Court, taking into account legal principles and doubts about the crime, has issued a verdict of acquittal of the accused,” the judiciary’s Mizan Online website reported, adding that the prosecutor could object to the decision.
Two other French citizens, Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris, accused of spying for Israel, are also detained in Iran and face the death penalty.
They were arrested on May 7, 2022, on the last day of a tourist trip.
Portraits of French national Cecile Kohler (L), currently imprisoned in Iran with her partner, French national Jacques Paris (C) along with a placard reading “Freedom for Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris arbitrarily detained in Iran for over two years in appalling conditions” outside the Palais Bourbon, France’s National Assembly, in Paris, on March 25, 2025. (Bertrand GUAY / AFP)
“The decision regarding the release of these two individuals and Ms. Esfandiari is being reviewed by the relevant authorities,” foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei told reporters at his weekly briefing.
“We hope that, once the necessary procedures are completed, this will happen soon,” he added, stressing that the two cases are separate issues.
Mahdieh Esfandiari, an Iranian woman, was arrested in France in February on charges of promoting terrorism on social media, according to French authorities.
Iran has repeatedly called her detention arbitrary but maintains that the French couple were spying on behalf of Israel.
“We believe that the detention of the Iranian national in France was unlawful,” Baghaei said, adding the French couple “face clearly defined charges.”
Earlier this year, France took the case to the International Court of Justice, accusing Iran of breaching consular access obligations under the Vienna Convention.
Paris later withdrew the request after Iran’s top diplomat, Abbas Araghchi, said a prisoner swap involving the couple and Esfandiari was nearing its final stages.
Governments, human rights groups and families of foreign nationals being held in Iran have accused Tehran of engaging in “hostage diplomacy.”
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