July 7. () –
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have announced the arrest of several foreign nationals in the country, including Britain’s deputy ambassador to Tehran, Giles Whitaker, for allegedly carrying out “espionage” activities such as taking soil samples after a ballistic test.
The organization has indicated that “one of those identified is the deputy ambassador of the United Kingdom” and has added that “he had gone to the Shahdad desert, in Kerman, with his family and as tourists”, although “the recorded images show that he was taking soil samples while a missile test was being carried out by the Revolutionary Guards Aerospace Force”.
“Whitaker was expelled from the city to which he had traveled after apologizing,” the Revolutionary Guard Intelligence Organization said, according to the Press TV television network. The media have also published images of Whitaker and others collecting soil in a restricted area.
Also among the detainees is the husband of an Austrian cultural attaché in Iran, who would also have taken soil samples in Damghan, in Semnan province. Previously, he had been seen filming a military zone in the capital, Tehran, as reported by the IRNA news agency.
The third detainee is a university professor from Poland who entered the country “under the cover of a scientific exchange with a university, although he went as a tourist to Kerman and Shahdad during a missile test to take samples of soil, water, rocks, salt. and mud”.
The man has been identified as Maciej Walczak, according to IRNA, which has pointed out that he is head of the Department of Biotechnology at Copernicus University, “associated with the Zionist regime”, referring to Israel. For now, neither the United Kingdom, nor Austria and Poland have commented on this information.
The spokesman for the Iranian justice apparatus, Masud Setayeshi, stated on Wednesday that the two French citizens arrested in May have been charged with “conspiring against national security”, without their identities having been revealed for the time being. Likewise, he assured that several Iranians who would have collaborated with the suspects are also being investigated, without giving more details in this regard.
The Government of France denounced in May the arrest of two of its citizens in the country, after Tehran announced the arrest of two European citizens for allegedly organizing acts to “generate chaos, social disorder and destabilization.” The Iranian Intelligence Ministry noted that the suspects “entered the country with the aim of abusing the demands of some people” and “turning these normal requests into chaos” with the aim of generating “a terrible wave of destruction.” .
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