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Iran frees jailed Swedish cosmetic firm worker

TT/AFP/The Local
TT/AFP/The Local - [email protected]
Iran frees jailed Swedish cosmetic firm worker

A Swedish-Iranian employee of Swedish cosmetics firm Oriflame who has been imprisoned in Iran since August has been released on bail and has left the country., Sveriges Radio (SR) reported on Thursday.

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The man, who was head of sales for the Iran operations of the direct-sales cosmetics firm, was arrested along with four other employees and accused of having profited from pyramid schemes.

Three of those 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 SR.

The man's release was confirmed by Sweden's foreign ministry

The Tehran office of Oriflame was shut down by authorities on August 22nd and five of its employees were arrested amid allegations that it was running a pyramid scheme and was possibly backed by a spy agency.

At the time, Iran's 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 was quoted by state television as telling reporters at the Imam Khomeini mausoleum in Tehran at the time of the arrests.

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 told AFP at the time of the arrests.

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