TEHRAN - Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi has urged France to stop interfering in Iran’s domestic affairs.

Mousavi’s comments came as French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian reiterated his demands for Iran to release Fariba Adelkhah, a research fellow at Sciences Po University in Paris, in a statement on Friday.

Mousavi said, “As we have said several times, the issue of Iranian national Fariba Adelkhah has been subject to an independent and fair judicial procedure. She has been sentenced proportionate to the crime she committed.”

He noted that the sentence will not be affected by political pressure.

A court in Iran has sentenced Adelkhah to six years in prison on national security charges.

According to Adelkhah’s lawyer, she was sentenced to five years in jail for “gathering and conspiring against national security,” as well as one year for “propaganda against the Islamic Republic”.

“We have appealed and if accepted, the sentence will drop to five years,” lawyer Saeid Dehghan told the Reuters news agency.

Adelkhah, a 60-year-old anthropologist and researcher at Sciences Po’s Center for International Studies (CERI) in Paris, was reportedly arrested in June 2019 on charges of espionage.

NA/PA