A British-Iranian academic who was detained in Tehran on security charges, has returned to London, Britain’s Foreign Office said on December 25.
Abbas Edalat, a professor of computer science and mathematics at Imperial College London, was detained in Iran in April for his alleged role in an "infiltration network.”
The Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII) charity that Edalat founded said he was released last week.
At the time of Edalat’s arrest, an Iranian news agency reported that he was part of a “network” of British spies whose members had been identified and arrested.
The anti-war protest group CASMII wrote on its website that Edalat’s detention was "a case of misinformation and misunderstanding by the Iranian security apparatus.”
The Foreign Office did not disclose details of the academic's release. A spokesman for the Foreign Office said: "We continue to take action on all our consular cases in Iran in line with what we believe will produce the best outcomes in their cases.”
Among several dual-nationals jailed in Iran is British-Iranian charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested in Tehran in April 2016. Zaghari-Ratcliffe is serving a five-year jail sentence for sedition -- a charge she has denied.
