Iranian Foreign Minister Abbás Arakči on Thursday confirmed that 18-year-old cyclist Lennart Monterlos, who was missing from June 16, is in Iran in custody, informs TASR. “He was detained for committing a crime and an official notice of his situation was delivered to the French embassy,” Arakčí said in an interview with the French daily Le Monde.
The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that it is in contact with the Iranian authorities and the family of a detained young man with French and German citizenship. At the same time, the Ministry again called on French citizens not to travel to Iran.
In August 2024, Lennart Monterlos went to a cycling from Europe to Japan, During which he planned to take a route more than 35,000 kilometers long. He considered this way to be a form of Sabatikal before university studies as his personal commitment to environmental protection.
On his Instagram profile he regularly published updates from the roads and mentioned that transit through Iran was the theme of sharp debates with loved ones. On an online platform to support his expedition, he said it was “strong emotions” and “meetings with people”.
The young man’s disappearance occurred during the recent military conflict between Iran and Israel, which increased the concern of the French authorities. French diplomacy described his case as worrying, given the “targeted policy of Iran in the area of detention citizens from the West,” said Laurent Saint-Martin, French Minister abroad in an interview with RTL.
For more than three years, two other French have been detained in Iran for more than three years – Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris who are accused of spying They are in favor of Israel and threaten the death penalty. Kohlerová, 40-year-old teacher from Eastern France, and her partner Paris (72) were detained on 7 May 2022, on the last day of their holiday in Iran.
Iran is expected to detain approximately 20 Europeans. Several Western governments blame Tehran that it is detained as a means of coercion to negotiate the release of Iranians detained in the West, recalls AFP.
