Young French academic Clotilde Reiss flew home from Iran on Sunday, 10 months after she was arrested and accused of spying, as France denied striking a secret deal with Tehran. A government jet brought the 24-year-old researcher to an airbase outside Paris after her lawyer paid Iran a fine of more than a quarter of a million dollars, and she was whisked to the office of President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Speaking briefly to reporters after her meeting with Sarkozy, she thanked the French leader for protesting her innocence and paid tribute to her former fellow detainees, two of whom have been put to death. Her arrival brought an end to a long drama which raised tensions between France and Iran and saw the young scholar paraded at a televised show trial and spend six weeks in Tehran's notorious Evin prison.
The release came after a French court ruled against a US extradition request for an Iranian engineer and shortly before another judge was to rule on the parole request of a jailed Iranian assassin. But French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner angrily insisted there had been "no haggling and no pay off" to ensure the release and said there had been no link between the French and Iranian cases.