Paris: France has refused to exchange a French academic charged in Tehran with taking part in anti-regime protests for an Iranian agent jailed in France for murder, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said today.
Kouchner told reporters that Iran was seeking the release of Ali Vakili Rad, who was found guilty in 1994 of the 1991 killing in France of Shapour Bakhtiar, an exile who had served as prime minister under the former Shah of Iran.
Iran`s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has suggested that Clotilde Reiss, a 24-year-old French researcher who is in Tehran awaiting a verdict in her trial for taking part in
protests, could be swapped for Vakili Rad, he said.
"There`s no question of that. Even if we wanted to, we couldn`t," Kouchner said, citing France`s tradition of judicial independence, adding that he had been told that Reiss would face her final trial hearing this week.
"She`s been summoned on Wednesday for a new court hearing, her last. I`m in favour of her going," Kouchner said at a Paris breakfast for journalists.
Reiss was arrested in the wake of the protests that followed Iran`s disputed presidential election in June, shortly before she was due to fly home after a six-month study
and teaching visit to the Iranian city of Isfahan.
Bureau Report
