PARIS, May 18 (UPI) -- France Tuesday released from prison the killer of Iran's last prime minister, only two days after Iranian authorities freed a French teacher accused of spying, fueling speculation that both governments conducted a behind-the-scenes prisoner swap.
Clotilde Reiss, a 24-year-old teacher, was visibly moved when addressing reporters after her arrival in Paris Sunday.
"I am so happy to be back in my country, to be free and with my family again," said Reiss, who had spent the past nine months under arrest in Iran for espionage after the Iranian presidential elections last summer, a charge she and her government deny. On Saturday Iran changed her jail time into a fine, with Reiss leaving the country a day later.
After Reiss' safe return home, French authorities moved quickly: They agreed to the release of Ali Vakili Rad, who was jailed for life in 1994 for the assassination of Shahpour Bakhtiar, Iran's last prime minister under the shah before the Islamic revolution. Bakhtiar had fled Iran after the revolution and was living in France, when Vakili Rad and two unidentified individuals stabbed him to death in the French town of Suresnes in 1991.
French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux signed an expulsion order Monday, and a Paris court agreed to Vakili Rad's early release after delaying a decision twice during the past year. Soon after his release, Vakili Rad boarded a plane to Tehran.
There, he will be welcomed with open arms: For his role in the killing of Bakhtiar, Iranian authorities consider him a hero of the Islamic Revolution.
Paris, Tehran as well as the lawyers involved deny that the releases are part of an unofficial prisoner swap. Only six months ago French President Nicolas Sarkozy had refused the call for such an exchange issued by his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, vowing France would not be blackmailed.
In Iran, the press boasted about the releases.
"We will retain from this adventure the fact that Iran has superbly manipulated and defied the democratic world and France in particular," the Midi Libre newspaper wrote.
The French opposition said it has no doubt that a prisoner swap took place. It urged the government to increase transparency in its dealings with the rogue state.
"It would have been better if the government had been honest about this," Benoit Hamon, the Socialist party spokesman, was quoted by the London Times as saying.
