in the case.
Majid Kakavand, 37, was arrested 13 months ago while he was in Paris for a Now Ruz vacation with his wife. He was soon allowed out of jail but forbidden to leave France while the extradition case worked its way through the French court system.
The case has dragged on at length. There is speculation the French government doesn’t want to case resolved until Clotilde Reiss, 24, is freed by Iran. Reiss was teaching French in Iran and was arrested several weeks after Kakavand after she attended some of the post-election protests. Reiss has also been freed on bail and is living in the French embassy in Tehran and barred from leaving Iran.
Another Iranian, Ali Vakili-Rad, has been imprisoned in France since 1991 for the murder in France of Shahpur Bakhtiar, the last prime minister under the monarchy. He has been eligible for parole since last July 2 (one day after Reiss was arrested), but a decision on the matter has been perpetually postponed, possibly as further insurance for the release of Reiss.
A sixth hearing on Kakavand’s extradition was held last Wednesday. It ended as have all his previous hearings with no decision and another hearing being scheduled, this one for April 14.
Kakavand is accused by the United States of buying sensitive American technology under false pretenses and arranging its shipment to Iran via Malaysia.
Under the U.S. extradition treaty with France, the accused must be charged with a crime that was also a crime in France at the same time in order to be extradited. France has restrictions on exports to Iran, but the court is still trying to determine if the products Kakavand bought and exported from the United States without an export license would have required an export license from France at the same time.
According to some news reports, three French government agencies have told the court the American measuring instruments at issue have no military applications—although, if that is true, it isn’t clear why the case should be continuing.
Diane Francois, Kakavand’s attorney, added a new element last week. She charged that some of the documents submitted by the U.S. government were forgeries. She said some of the documents “were email copies with attachments that did not have corresponding dates.” She said she was asking federal prosecutors in San Francisco to open an investigation. That would provide France with a further rationale for delaying action on the extradition request.
