PARIS – A French teaching assistant who was arrested in Iran 10 months ago on spying charges headed home on Sunday after a Tehran court commuted her prison term and gave her back her passport. Clotilde Reiss, 24, was accused of aiding a Western plot to topple Iran's clerical regime after taking part in anti-government demonstrations last June following the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Her lawyer said on Saturday that a court had sentenced her to parallel 5-year prison terms, but commuted this to a fine of $285,000, letting her leave the country, much to the relief of France which had always proclaimed her innocence. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner hailed her release and accused Iran of having held her hostage. "We have waited for Clotilde for a long time," he told Radio J. Her release came less than two weeks after France refused to extradite to the United States an Iranian engineer, accused by Washington of illegally buying equipment for military use. In addition, an Iranian serving life in a French jail for the 1991 murder of a former Iranian prime minister, is expected to win parole on Tuesday and be immediately expelled. Kouchner denied that there was any link between these decisions, saying the French justice system was independent.
