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BANGKOK: Thailand confirmed it had returned three Iranians jailed over a 2012 bomb plot in Bangkok, in an apparent swap after Tehran freed an Australian lecturer imprisoned for alleged spying.
Thailand’s corrections department said two of the men – Masoud Sedaghatzadeh and Saeid Moradi – were transferred as prisoners while the third, Mohammad Khazaei, was granted a royal pardon in August.
Thai officials have not explicitly linked the transfer with the release of 33-year-old scholar Kylie Moore-Gilbert, who returned to Australia after two years in detention in Iran on espionage charges. Iranian state TV said that Moore-Gilbert was swapped for three Iranians.
The trio freed by Thailand had all been jailed over a botched bomb plot that Israel linked to a spate of attacks on its diplomats around the world. The plot came to light on Valentine’s Day 2012 when a huge explosion ripped the roof off a house in suburban Bangkok after bombs apparently detonated accidentally inside.
Moradi threw a bomb at police as he fled the scene but succeeded only in blowing his own legs off, while Khazaei made it to the airport before being apprehended. In 2013 a Bangkok court jailed Moradi for life for attempted murder and sentenced Khazaei to 15 years for possession of explosives.
Sedaghatzadeh fled to Malaysia before being extradited some years later. Details of his conviction and sentence were not immediately available. Two other suspects in the case are believed to have fled to Iran. Israel accused Tehran of waging a terror campaign over the plot, which emerged a day after bomb attacks on its diplomats in India and Georgia.
Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said she was “extremely pleased and relieved” by Moore-Gilbert’s release and reiterated that her government was rejecting the grounds for her arrest and conviction. The academic denied any wrongdoing and staged several hunger protests during her incarceration.
