Benjamin Brière: French tourist jailed in Iran on spying charges

A French tourist has been jailed for eight years for spying by a court in Iran, his lawyer in Paris has said.

Benjamin Brière, 36, was arrested in May 2020 after flying a drone near the Iran-Turkmenistan border.

France’s foreign ministry called his conviction “unacceptable” and said it had “no basis in fact”.

A lawyer for Mr Brière, Philippe Valent, said his client had grown “more and more weak” from a hunger strike which he began in December.