Iran releases Australian couple after 3 months in detention

The Australian foreign minister said the pair were on their way home and 'in good health and good spirits'

(FILES) In this file photo taken on June 13, 2006 an Iranian inmate peers from behind a wall as a guard walks by at the female section of the infamous Evin jail, north of Tehran. Two Australians detained in Iran were named on September 12, 2019 as a travel-blogging couple who were arrested while making an overland trip from their home country to Britain. Perth-based Jolie King and Mark Firkin had been documenting their journey on social media for the past two years but went silent after posting updates from Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan about 10 weeks ago.
 / AFP / ATTA KENARE
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Iran has released an Australian-British blogger and her fiance from detention after three months, the Australian foreign minister said on Saturday.

Foreign Minister Marise Payne said that the couple, Jolie King and Mark Firkin, have returned home and are in "good health and in good spirits."

She said all charges against them had been dropped.

"For Jolie and for Mark, the ordeal they have been through is now over, they are being reunited with their loved ones, which is a source of great relief and joy to everyone," Ms Payne said.

They were held in detention in Tehran for almost three months after being arrested for reportedly flying a drone without a permit. They had been documenting their journey from Australia to Britain on social media for the past two years, but went silent after posting updates from Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan about three months ago.

There was no immediate acknowledgment Saturday by Iranian officials or in the country's state media of the couple's release. However, that has happened in previous cases.

A third Australian, University of Melbourne academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert, is still being imprisoned by Iran after being charged with spying last year.

Ms Payne said her case was "very complex" as she had been sentenced to 10 years in jail.

"We are continuing our discussions with the Iranian government, we don't accept the charges upon which she was convicted and we will seek to have her returned to Australia," she said.

Hours after the announcement, state media in Tehran reported that an Iranian student held in Australia for 13 months on accusations of circumventing US sanctions on military equipment had also been released and returned home.

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

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

The channel 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.

The Australian couple sought privacy, however.

They said in their statement that intense media coverage "may not be helpful" in the negotiations for the release of a third Australian detained in Iran in an unrelated case.

Ms Payne has maintained the cases of those detained were not related to diplomatic tensions.

Australia said in August it would join a US-led naval coalition to escort commercial ships in the Gulf, after a spate of attacks blamed on Iran but that Tehran denied.

However, that announcement is believed to have come after the arrests.

News of the release of the King and Firkin comes just weeks after an Iranian woman arrested in Australia and sentenced in the United States was returned home.

Negar Ghodskani was sentenced last month in Minneapolis to 27 months in prison for violating sanctions against Tehran, but was released following time served in custody in Australia and the United States.