Iran swaps jailed British-Australian Kylie Moore-Gilbert with Iranians jailed abroad

Iran freed jailed British-Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert on Wednesday after more than two years imprisonment on contested spying charges, in an exchange for three Iranian prisoners held abroad, Iranian media reported.

Melbourne University lecturer Dr Moore-Gilbert was held for 804 days after being arrested in September 2018. In a secret trial, she was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment on spying charges that the Australian government maintains were politically motivated.

"An Iranian businessman and two Iranian citizens who were detained abroad on baseless charges were exchanged for a dual national spy named Kylie Moore-Gilbert, who worked for the Zionist regime," said a statement on the website of the Young Journalist Club, a news outlet affiliated to Iranian state television.

Who facilitated the exchange was not immediately clear but the case is likely to reinvigorate debate over Iran’s use of prisoners as bargaining chips.

Moore-Gilbert said after leaving Iran that she was grateful for the work done to gain her release.

"Thank you also to all of you who have supported me and campaigned for my freedom," she said, in a statement released through Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

"I came to Iran as a friend and with friendly intentions and depart Iran with those sentiments not only still intact, but strengthened."

She has denied any wrongdoing.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Thursday he had spoken with Moore-Gilbert ahead of her return.

"I have always believed in miracles and I'm just thankful for this one," Morrison told reporters.

"She seems to be in our own conversations, in quite good spirits, but I imagine there is a lot of processing to go through yet."

Footage purporting to show the exchange was broadcast on state television. It shows Dr Moore-Gilbert, 33, wearing a grey headscarf and briefly pulling down a surgical mask to show her face.

Iranian flags are draped on the three men apparently exchanged, one of whom is a wheelchair-bound double amputee.

Telegram channels affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) identified the men as Saeed Moradi, Mohammad Khazaei and Masoud Sedaghat Zadeh, according to a tweet by New York Times correspondent Farnaz Fassihi.

Two of them had apparently been jailed for terrorism in Thailand over an attempted bomb plot against the Israeli ambassador in 2012.

Mr Moradi, who lost his legs in an explosion after he tried to throw a bomb at police, was given a life sentence, the BBC reported. Mr Khazaei was reportedly sentenced to 15 years in prison for possessing explosives after being arrested at Bangkok airport.

Regime critics accuse Iran of trying to force concessions from foreign governments in a campaign of state hostage-taking that has seen the Islamic republic detain dozens of dual nationals and foreigners on spying charges.

Tehran denies this and insists that Dr Moore-Gilbert, who was arrested after attending a conference in Qom, worked for Mi6 and Israeli intelligence services.

In letters smuggled out of Evin prison earlier this year, the Cambridge-educated Islamic studies lecturer wrote that 10 months spent in an isolated wing run by the IRGC had "gravely damaged" her mental health.

She also wrote that she had declined an offer to spy for the Iranian government in return for a reduced sentence.

Iran’s foreign ministry said last December it would not "give in to the political and smear campaigns" over Dr Moore-Gilbert’s imprisonment.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Seyyed Abbas Mousavi said at the time that Dr Moore-Gilbert was afforded her legal rights. "This Australian citizen is serving her sentence while enjoying all legal rights, like any other convict with a judicial verdict," he said.

Human rights campaigners are now hoping that detained UK-Iranian dual nationals Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori could also be freed.

“We’d like to see the UK government pulling out all the stops to pressure the Iranian authorities into ending the judicial charade that has seen Nazanin and Anoosheh held for so long,” said Kate Allen, Director at Amnesty International UK.

Any such deal to free Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe would face much greater complications.

For one, the Iranian government’s relationship with the UK is much more fraught.

Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s Foreign Minister, has openly offered a prisoner swap deal to the US, which has a number of high-profile Iranians in its prisons. However, Britain is not thought to be holding anyone of real importance to the Iranian regime.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe release is also reportedly dependent on the UK paying a £450 million debt it has owed Iran since the 1970s for a cancelled arms deal.