Academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert arrives in Australia after more than two years imprisoned in Iran

Academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert arrived in Australia today, after more than two years in an Iranian prison, the Associated Press (AP) news agency reported.

Kylie Moore-Gilbert was received by public health officials and members of the Australian Defense Force after disembarking from a plane at Canberra airport.

Australia’s Foreign Minister Marise Payne said the scholar would have to do a local quarantine first.

The British-Australian academic at the University of Melbourne was released after 804 days in prison in Iran on charges of espionage.

According to the AP, Kylie Moore-Gilbert was released in exchange for three Iranians detained in Thailand.

The Australian Government denied on Thursday that it traded Iranian prisoners for the release on Wednesday of Australian-British academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert after spending two years in Iran’s prisons.

Iranian state television reported on Wednesday that Moore-Gilbert was replaced by three Iranian citizens who were imprisoned abroad, described by the press as “Iranian economic activists who were arrested for trying to evade the sanctions” imposed on Tehran.

Moore-Gilbert, a specialist in Islamic studies, was arrested in Iran in September 2018 but it was not until a year later that her situation was made public.

The academic at the University of Melbourne, Australia, denounced in letters that she had suffered abuse and offers from Tehran to work as a spy, having been sentenced in 2019 to 10 years in prison for spying.

In 2019, the Canberra Government released Iranian student Reza Dehabashi, detained for trying to buy and export products to Iran.

Dehabashi’s release coincided with the release of Australian-British blogger Jolie King and boyfriend Mark Firkin, detained in Tehran.

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