Morrison, Payne on release of academic by Iran

Australia's Foreign Minister said Thursday she was "extremely pleased" that Iran had released 33-year-old British-Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert in a prisoner swap.

Marise Payne said Moore-Gilbert's release had been an "absolute priority" for the government since she was first detained.

"We have consistently rejected the grounds on which the government of Iran arrested and detained Dr. Moore-Gilbert and we continue to do so," Payne told reporters.

Iran first announced on state television that it had freed the scholar, imprisoned for more than two years on spying charges, in exchange for three Iranians held abroad.

The report was scant on detail, saying only that the Iranians had been imprisoned for trying to bypass sanctions on Iran.

Asked about the swap, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said "the Australian government doesn't acknowledge or confirm any such arrangement regarding any release of any other persons in any other places."

However, he confirmed there were no people held in Australia who had been released.

Moore-Gilbert was a Melbourne University lecturer on Middle Eastern studies when she was picked up at a Tehran airport as she tried to leave the country after attending an academic conference in 2018.

She was sent to Tehran's notorious Evin prison, convicted of spying and sentenced to 10 years.

She had vehemently denied the charges and maintained her innocence.

She was one of several Westerners held in Iran on widely criticized espionage charges that activists and U.N. investigators believe is a systematic effort to leverage their imprisonment for money or influence in negotiations with the West. Tehran denies it.

Moore-Gilbert wrote in letters to Morrison that she had been imprisoned "to extort" the Australian government.