Academic held in Iran pushed to brink of suicide

Australian British academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert, who was freed from an Iranian prison late last year, has spoken out about her ordeal for the first time.

She has revealed she contemplated suicide during her two-year detention on espionage charges.

"There were a few times in that early period that I felt broken. I felt if I have to endure another day of this, you know, if I could I'd just kill myself. But of course I'd never tried and I'd never, I never took that step."

In an interview with Sky News Australia, the University of Melbourne academic explained what it was like to spend seven months in solitary confinement with only a telephone to communicate with prison guards.

"The extreme solitary confinement room, is designed to break you. It's psychological torture. You go completely insane. It is so damaging. I would say I felt physical pain from the psychological trauma I had in that room. It's a two by two meter box."

Moore-Gilbert was detained in Iran in 2018 and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

She fought the sentence through a series of hunger strikes and in her most daring opposition the academic says she once attempted to escape.

She was eventually released in a prisoner swap for three Iranians who had been detained abroad.

The Middle East politics specialist denied any wrongdoing, rejecting Iran's allegations that she was working as a spy for Israel.

Now in Australia, she says she is focused on her recovery.