French researcher home after Iran trial ordeal

French President Nicolas Sarkozy spoke by phone on Thursday with a French academic on trial in Iran for allegedly taking part in anti-government protests, his office said.Sarkozy telephoned Clotilde Reiss as she was celebrating Christmas in the French embassy in Tehran, where she has stayed since being granted bail in August."The head of state assured her of his total support and said he hoped to see her return to France soon to be with her own people," the Elysee palace said in a statement.

To the victor, belongs the spoils. Had former French president Nicolas Sarkozy won reelection, he certainly would not be under investigation for illegally funding his campaign, nor there would be an investigation regarding his involvement in fraudulent arms sales to Pakistan.

Nicolas Sarkozy's lawyer on Sunday launched a fresh salvo against the judge who charged the former president with taking financial advantage of France's richest woman, as a public outcry among Sarkozy supporters grows.

A French court on Tuesday released Iranian agent Ali Vakili Rad on parole, his lawyer said, just days after a young French academic accused of spying in Tehran was allowed to return home.Vakili Rad was serving a life sentence for murdering the Shah's last prime minister, Shapour Bakhtiar, at his home outside Paris in August 1991 and he became eligible for parole last year.His lawyer Sorin Margulis said a sentencing court agreed on Tuesday to release the Iranian national after the interior minister signed a deportation order, paving the way for Vakili Rad's return to Iran.

PARIS — A judge on Thursday filed preliminary charges against former President Nicolas Sarkozy in a campaign finance case, formally placing him under investigation over allegations that he illegally took donations from France’s richest woman on way to his 2007 election victory.

East Timorese president Jose Ramos-Horta, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, appealed Sunday to Iran to release two American hikers arrested on the Iraqi border in 2009 and accused of espionage.The trial of Sarah Shourd, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal will resume on May 11, 18 months after they were detained for alleged spying and illegally entering the Islamic republic across a remote section of the border.The three have pleaded not guilty to the spying charges and maintain they innocently strayed into Iran across the unmarked frontier.

The next trial hearing of French academic Clotilde Reiss, accused of "collecting information and provoking rioters," will take place in Tehran on Tuesday, the ISNA news agency reported.The agency said Sunday that the trial in a Revolutionary Court will be attended by "the defendant's lawyer and the prosecutor's representative," but did not clarify whether Reiss herself would be present.The academic was arrested in the wake of the protests that followed Iran's disputed presidential election in June.