TEHRAN, May 12 (Xinhua) -- The Iranian Embassy in Dublin said that an Irish national imprisoned in Iran has been pardoned and released on "consular and humanitarian" grounds.
The Iranian Embassy announced in a post on its Twitter page on Thursday evening the Irish national's release was a result of "constructive diplomatic engagement between Iran and Ireland," identifying the Irish citizen as Bernard Phelan.
Phelan, a Paris-based travel consultant, was arrested in October 2022 in Iran and sentenced to over six years in prison for "sending security information" abroad after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died in a Tehran hospital on Sept. 16, a few days after her collapse at a police station. The 64-year-old man was held in a prison in the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad.
Given that the Irish national had entered Iran with a French passport, his case was pursued by the French Embassy in Tehran.
In a phone call with his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian on Thursday, Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin thanked Iran for releasing Phelan.
