A German citizen identified as Marek Kaufman, who is said to be Jewish, has been under arrest in Iran for over a year on suspicion of espionage, Iran’s state-run Mehr news agency acknowledged Saturday.
Iranian authorities allege that Kaufman, who was in Iran on a tourist visa, was caught cycling near sensitive military and nuclear sites in the central province of Markazi, the report said, likely referencing Arak. The news item repeatedly referred to Kaufman as Jewish.
According to Mehr, officials accuse Kaufman of gathering information about missile installations, drone routes and air force bases. According to the London-based outlet Iran International, Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps intelligence officers apprehended him in an area marked with military warning signs.
A five-minute video aired by Mehr appears to show the German man acknowledging the presence of military zones. In the footage, he presents himself as a bicycle tourist and admits he realized he was in a restricted area where photography and filming were prohibited.
“It was definitely this, but in my memory it looked different than this. I thought that it was some military place. I also wrote that it was some military place. I only knew that it is forbidden to take videos and pictures or give information about it away,” Kaufman is seen saying in the heavily-edited video item.
He seems to have been filmed for the video close to his arrest, as he is wearing plain clothes and the background shows a bicycle and a one-person tent. The Mehr video item on him aired on Saturday featured dramatic music and footage of gear said to have been recovered from Mossad operations in Iran, though not on Kaufman.
The same video also included drone footage of a cyclist, said to be Kaufman, suggesting Iranian counterintelligence had been following him prior to his arrest. The item also had footage of Kaufman filming himself and animatedly explaining about his whereabouts, as many vloggers do on social media.
A statement from a female presenter who alleges that the German suspect received navigation instructions from “American and Jewish commanders.” Iran International noted that the presenter had previously been sanctioned over the broadcast of forced confessions.
Germany’s Foreign Office declined to comment on the case when contacted by the German Press Agency (dpa), it reported. Details about possible legal steps remain unclear. According to the dpa news agency, the arrest occurred sometime in 2023, though it has only now been publicly disclosed.
The reported arrest comes amid heightened tensions between Iran and Israel and follows a trend of increasing detentions of foreign nationals in the Islamic Republic since Iran and Israel first exchanged blows last year.
