ACCUSED FRENCH SPY GIVEN 8 YEARS

An Iranian court on Tuesday sentenced French national Benjamin Briere to eight years in prison on spying charges, his Paris-based lawyer said, describing the trial as a politically motivated sham. Briere, 36, has been held in Iran since May 2020, when he was arrested after flying a remote-controlled helicam in the desert near the Turkmenistan-iran border. The ruling comes at a sensitive time as the parties to Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal try to restore the pact that was abandoned in 2018 by then U.S. president Donald Trump.