French man got eight years of jail on the charging of spying, and the court of Iran sentenced him. His lawyer criticised his trial as a fraud, and the accusations on him said baseless. 

Benjamin Briere, 36-year-old, has been in police custody since May 2020; the reason for his arrest is because of flying a helicam, basically a remote control mini helicopter, he used to bring aerial or monitor images -in the desert near the Turkmenistan-Iran border. 

According to his lawyer, “Philippe Valent”, on January 25, Currently, he is on hunger strike, and he was also given an extra eight-month sentence for propaganda against Iran’s Islamic system.

“This judgement is the result of a purely political process that is devoid of any basis,” he said. 

Colliding the trial, which starts on Thursday as a “masquerade”, he added that Briere did not get any fair trial in front of neutral judges and noted he had not to be allowed to access the full accusation against him. 

France criticised as “unacceptable” the jail prison. This ruling, which nothing can justify, is unacceptable,” according to the statement of the foreign minister also adding the Briere had been arrested while travelling in Iran. 

In current years, Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards have charged dozens of people who have dual nationality and foreigners, mostly accused of spying and security. 

Briere’s ordeal came as the United States and parties of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal, including France, tried to restore the contract after US Prime Minister Donald Trump removed his country from the agreement in 2018. 

According to the Valent, it is not acceptable that Benjamin Briere is being kept in prisoner to negotiations by a government which controls a French citizen arbitrarily detained merely to use him as a currency in exchange.”

He added that Briere was more and more weakened as he was on a hunger strike that lasted a month.

Briere is also a prisoner who does not hold his Iranian passport.