Iran should retaliate if France extradites Iranian national to U.S.: NGOs
A French court has agreed to extradite Jalal Rouhollahnejad to the United States under the allegation of trying to provide radar equipment for countering radars.
A decree by the French prime minister is still necessary for the extradition to go ahead.
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have suggested that if the order is approved by the French prime minister, Iran should take reciprocal measures.
Iran has denounced as politically-motivated a French court’s verdict to extradite an Iranian engineer to the United States over accusations of importing American technology for military purposes.
The condemnation came on Saturday after the court in Aix-en-Provence, southern France, approved the extradition of Jalal Rouhollahnejad to the US to face charges of “attempting to illegally import US technology for military purposes on behalf of an Iranian company.”
The Iranian non-governmental Center for Civilian Drones along with a number of knowledge-based firms working in the field of aerospace said in a joint statement that the French court’s verdict was politically-motivated and against the principles of the Iran nuclear deal as well as other international rules.
Rouhollahnejad was detained on February 2 at Nice airport as he got off a plane coming from Tehran. The US judicial officials claimed that the Iranian engineer might have been seeking to import high-power industrial microwave systems from the US to be later used for military purposes in Iran.
The Iranian aerospace firms said in the statement that high-power industrial microwave systems are modern non-military technologies used for detecting Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) flying in sensitive sites like airports.
“Such a move will have serious repercussions for the French tradesmen and specialists working in Iran,” the statement warned.
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