PARIS (Reuters) -An 18-year-old French-German cyclist missing in Iran since mid-June has been in custody there, Iran’s foreign minister was quoted as saying on Thursday.
“He was arrested for committing a crime, and an official notification regarding his situation was sent to the French embassy,” Abbas Araghchi told French daily newspaper Le Monde, without providing further details.
France’s foreign ministry said it was in contact with Iranian authorities and the family of Lennart Monterlos, who went missing on June 16. The French ministry said it would give no further comment, as his safety was at stake.
The arrest is likely to worsen already strained ties between Paris and Tehran.
Iran has already been holding two other French citizens, Jacques Paris and Cecile Kohler, for more than three years in conditions France has said are akin to torture.
France has called their detention state-sponsored hostage taking and demanded they be released immediately.
Earlier on Thursday, France’s foreign ministry spokesperson Christophe Lemoine said Paris was trying to get permission to visit them.
The pair were moved from Tehran’s Evin prison following airstrikes by Israel that targeted the prison in June. French consular officials visited them at a new location on July 1, but no longer knew where they were being held now, he said.
Iran in June charged the two with spying for Israel’s Mossad intelligence service.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have detained dozens of foreign and dual nationals in recent years, often on espionage-related charges. Rights groups and Western countries accuse Tehran of using foreign detainees as bargaining chips, which it denies.
France filed a case in May at the World Court against Iran for violating the right to consular protection, in a bid to pressure Tehran over the detention of its two citizens.
Lemoine reiterated that French nationals should not travel to Iran given the risk of arbitrary arrests.
(Reporting by John IrishEditing by Peter Graff)
