Detained in Iran since 2022, Olivier Grondeau was touring the world while he was incarcerated. His mother, Thérèse Grondeau, and her friend, Tristan Bultiauw, called for help by transmitting a message from their loved one on France Inter this Monday, January 13.
After two years of incarceration, Olivier Grondeau decided to break his silence. Detained in Iran, it was on the airwaves of France Inter this Monday, January 13 that the message from the 34-year-old young man was transmitted by his mother Thérèse Grondeau, and his friend Tristan Bultiauw.
“What is the return? It’s an old dream which is no longer enough to give meaning to this exhausting vigil,” declared the Frenchman. It was in October 2022 that Olivier Grondeau was arrested in Shiraz in the south of Iran, while he was traveling as part of a world tour.
Incarcerated in the prisons of Shiraz, then Evin (in Tehran), he had “until now wished to avoid the media coverage of his situation” as he indicated in a letter sent to Le Monde in which he called on the authorities competent to accelerate his release and that of the two other hostages held in the country, Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris.
After a hunger strike in January 2024, his trial on February 19 of that same year sentenced him to five years in prison for “collecting information with a view to providing it to the opposing spy service”, a decision confirmed on appeal three months later.
“Your responsibility is committed”
Exhausted due to precarious detention conditions – with 18 fellow detainees – Olivier Grondeau described himself as “really very tired”. In his letter to Le Monde published this Monday, the latter says he is authorized to telephone his parents on a weekly basis, adding that he is entitled “to calls on Iranian numbers according to arbitrarily allocated slots”.
-“You who have the power to influence this matter hear this truth: the forces of Cécile, the forces of Jacques, the forces of Olivier are exhausted,” he added in his message to France Inter, alerting on the situation of his two compatriots Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris, also detained in Iran since 2022.
“In this state of exhaustion, it became very clear to me that my responsibility is for a story to survive. You, your responsibility, is committed to the survival of three human beings,” he assured.
Former Scrabble ace and passionate travel writer, Olivier Grondeau has been traveling to the four corners of the world since 2010, Le Point noted. His only companions? His backpack, his sweatshirt and his flip-flops. Just like Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris, Olivier Grondeau is considered a “state hostage” by France.
On January 10, the Quai d’Orsay and the Iranian ambassador in Paris spoke about these hostages, the first having denounced “unworthy conditions of detention which, for some, amount to torture in international law “.
Related News :