UK – IranWire, February 24, 2025
Dutch citizen Cees Ljunberg has been released from Tehran’s Evin Prison after serving five years of a 10-year sentence, IranWire has learned.
The release coincides with Iran’s announcement that Mehdi Kiyasti, an Iranian national held in the Netherlands, has also been freed and will return to Iran, suggesting a prisoner exchange between the two countries.
Ljunberg, who worked as a tour guide in Iran, was initially sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges of “assembly and collusion against national security,” according to sources familiar with the case. He was held in Ward 8 of Evin Prison.
Sources told IranWire that during his final months in prison, Ljunberg had raised a kitten in the prison yard and requested permission to take it with him to the Netherlands.
