French drone tourist in Iran Benjamin Briere 'facing spy charges'

[Dariush the Great]

French drone tourist in Iran Benjamin Briere 'facing spy charges'

Benjamin Briere was detained in Iran last year after flying the device near the Turkmenistan border.

www.bbc.com

A French tourist detained in Iran ten months ago is facing two charges of "spying and propaganda against the system", according to his lawyer.
Benjamin Briere, 35, was arrested after flying a drone near the Iran-Turkmenistan border.
His lawyer Saeid Dehghan said Mr Briere could face a long prison sentence if found guilty.
It comes at a time of rising tensions between Iran and European countries and the US over Iran's nuclear capacity.
Mr Briere is being held in a prison in the city of Mashhad and is in good health, Mr Dehghan said, adding that "his spying charges [are] because of taking pictures in forbidden areas".



The charge of "propaganda against the system", the lawyer said, was the result of a social media post by Mr Briere that said "the hijab is mandatory" in Iran but not in other Islamic countries.

"My colleagues and I believe that these charges are false and baseless, but we have to wait for the judge to conduct a full investigation in the next few days and announce his verdict," Mr Dehghan added.
Last month, France's foreign ministry confirmed a French citizen was being held in Iran and that it was monitoring the situation.
It has not commented on the charges.
France is part of a group of countries - along with the US, UK, China, Russia and Germany - that say they are trying to restore a nuclear deal that was struck with Iran in 2015 but was abandoned by US President Donald Trump in 2018.
The Trump administration then reinstated sanctions that Iran has said must be lifted before it will agree to restore the pact.

• Iran nuclear crisis in 300 words

Iran has insisted that its nuclear programme is peaceful, but suspicions by other nations, including France, that it may be being used as a cover for building a nuclear bomb led to sanctions being imposed in 2010.




Human rights activists in the past have accused Iran of detaining foreign or dual-nationality citizens to use as leverage against other countries.
The charges against Mr Briere come after British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe appeared in court in Tehran on propaganda charges. The charity worker has already served five years in prison in Iran.

 

[TheImmortal]

Dude was probably flying the drone trying to take footage of the Armenian-Azeri war that was ongoing.

Doubt there is anything “sensitive” on the border region that Iran is hiding that couldn’t be picked up by a spy satellite, but can be picked up by an off the shelf commercial drone. But being a French national this idiot should have known better.

 

[aryobarzan]

Dude was probably flying the drone trying to take footage of the Armenian-Azeri war that was ongoing.

Doubt there is anything “sensitive” on the border region that Iran is hiding that couldn’t be picked up by a spy satellite, but can be picked up by an off the shelf commercial drone. But being a French national this idiot should have known better.

either he was really spying or part of an exchange program to be swapped with an Iranian..did they grab any Iranian in France.!!!

 

[mohsen]

Dude was probably flying the drone trying to take footage of the Armenian-Azeri war that was ongoing.

Doubt there is anything “sensitive” on the border region that Iran is hiding that couldn’t be picked up by a spy satellite, but can be picked up by an off the shelf commercial drone. But being a French national this idiot should have known better.

Turkmenistan is on the other side of the Caspian sea!

Now the question is what kind of sensors have been on his drone, and whether he has accidentally monitored a small part of border or border has been his main point of interest.

A drone can gather information which even high altitude flying ISR planes can't collect, let alone satellites (eg radar signals at low altitude).

 

[yavar]

https://imgur.com/a/Vc6hfgL

nazanin zaghari ratcliffe in G ando-2 TV-series,

 

[TheImmortal]

Turkmenistan is on the other side of the Caspian sea!

Now the question is what kind of sensors have been on his drone, and whether he has accidentally monitored a small part of border or border has been his main point of interest.

A drone can gather information which even high altitude flying ISR planes can't collect, let alone satellites (eg radar signals at low altitude).

Thanks for correction

And what would be on the Turkmenistan border that the evil West or Zionist would like to find? Endangered Cheetahs?

Come on Mohsen I know using critical thinking skills is not your forte. But I doubt there is anything sensitive in that region especially near the border.

It’s clear he is being captured as leverage with EU. Probably to free some Iranians stuck in Europe prisons. There is an off chance he is tied to drug cartels as we looking at ways for smugglers to get thru, but I’m sure it would make sense to use a native of the area and not a French tourist for this level of intelligence gathering.

None of these so called spies have been able to stop high level sabotage (missile fueling facility, Natanz, or Nuclear chief assassination) in past year. They are just pawns in a large game.

 

[mohsen]

Thanks for correction

And what would be on the Turkmenistan border that the evil West or Zionist would like to find? Endangered Cheetahs?

Come on Mohsen I know using critical thinking skills is not your forte. But I doubt there is anything sensitive in that region especially near the border.

Well, obviously anything beyond your nose wont be a critical subject!

Turkmenistan shares border with Iran and Afghanistan, US has bases in Afghanistan, Iran is very sensitive on Afghanistan border, attacking using a using third party airspace is pretty common in middle east!