dual national who ran a Swedish cosmetics outlet in Tehran and he has fled the country.
The man was head of sales for the Iran operations of the direct-sales—that is, door-to-door—cosmetics firm. He was arrested August 22 along with four local Iranian employees and accused of having profited from pyramid schemes. Other allegations of distributing pornography and working against Iran’s national interests were also bruited about.
Three of the others who were arrested were released at an earlier date. The fifth Oriflame employee, an Iranian national, is still in detention.
“On our part, the process is not fully resolved until all are out of prison,” Oriflame spokesman Patrick Linzenbold told Swedish radio.
The dual national’s release was confirmed by Sweden’s Foreign Ministry. The man’s name has never been released in Sweden, but the Fars news agency in Tehran identified him as Amir Mortazavi.
At the time of the arrests, Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi accused the firm of trying to harm Iran’s security.
“Oriflame intended to fight the [Iranian] system. There are no economic reasons behind the company,” he told reporters.
The company’s chief financial officer said the company was not involved in any political activities and had not been told why its Iranian operations were shut down.
“We are a cosmetics company, we are selling direct. We are of course not involved in any political activities in the country. It is very, very difficult to comment on” the accusations, Oriflame’s chief financial officer, Gabriel Bennet, said at the time of the arrests.
The Swedish Foreign Ministry said the dual national was freed on bail last week and then left Iran. Fars said he “escaped” from Iran.
