Four environmentalists jailed for more than five years on espionage charges will be released after Iran’s supreme leader pardons them, state media reported on Sunday.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei pardoned more than 2,000 prisoners to mark the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Their release date is unclear, but their lawyer Hojat Kermani said they would be released “in the coming days.”
“The human rights representatives of the judiciary informed my clients that they have been included in the amnesty,” Kermani told the official IRNA news agency.
He named his clients as Sepideh Kashani, Niloufar Bayani, Houman Jowkar and Taher Ghadirain.
They were arrested in 2018 on suspicion of spying for foreign governments and other crimes and sentenced to up to 10 years in prison.
The conservationists work for the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation, an environmental organization that protects endangered species.
In early 2018, Kavous Seyed Emami, a 63-year-old Iranian-Canadian environmentalist and university professor, died in prison.
He reportedly committed suicide two weeks after his arrest, but his relatives denied the accusation.
Wildlife activist Morad Tahbaz was one of five American prisoners released from Iran in 2023 as part of a prisoner exchange deal with the United States.
