UPDATE 2-French-German national Monterlos returns to France after release by Iran

(Adds context, paragraphs 5-8) Oct 8 (Reuters) – French-German national Lennart Monterlos has been released from detention in Iran and is back in France, outgoing French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Wednesday. Iran had been holding the 18-year-old cyclist after arresting him in June on espionage charges. Monterlos was acquitted on Monday, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency. "Lennart Monterlos is free!" Barrot wrote in a post on the social media X. Both Barrot and President Emmanuel Macron reiterated demands that Iran release French nationals Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris, who have been held in the Islamic Republic since 2022. France has repeatedly accused Iran of holding Kohler and Paris arbitrarily, keeping them in conditions akin to torture in Tehran's Evin prison and not allowing proper consular protection. The Islamic Republic denies the accusations. It had accused the pair of spying for Israel's Mossad intelligence service. France has called those charges baseless. On Monday, the two countries said talks for the release of all three prisoners were progressing, after Paris dropped in September its case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Tehran for violating the right to consular protection of its citizens. The case at the ICJ, or World Court, was widely seen as a bid to pressure Iran over the detention of its citizens. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi suggested in mid-September the French nationals could be exchanged for Mahdieh Esfandiari, an Iranian student living in the French city of Lyon who was arrested this year over anti-Israel social media posts. (Reporting by Alessandro Parodi and John Irish, editing by Dominique Vidalon, William Maclean)

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