Iran’s intelligence minister says that a British-Iranian member of its nuclear negotiating team has been cleared of spying allegations, according to state media.
Abdolrasoul Dorri Esfahani, part of the team that secured a nuclear accord with world powers last year, was arrested in August and described by a judiciary spokesman as an “infiltrating spy.”
A satellite image of Iran’s Fordo uranium enrichment facility. (AP/DigitalGlobe)
But in a written note to parliament, Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi said the case had been dropped, the official IRNA news agency reports.
“According to the views of the intelligence ministry’s experts, Mr Dorri Esfahani was not engaged in spying,” the note says, according to deputy speaker Masoud Pezeshkian.
Esfahani’s role in the nuclear negotiations has not been clarified.
Local media reported in August that he was not an official member of the team and had only been brought in as an expert on specific economic questions.
However, conservative-linked weekly Ramze Obour claimed he “bypassed the negotiating team and gave invaluable information to the United States.”
— AFP
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