Santiago Sánchez Cogedor, a Spanish national who had been imprisoned in Iran for over a year after entering the country in October 2022, returned to Madrid on Tuesday, following his release on New Year’s Eve.
‘I can’t believe it. This has been very hard, but I am here. We have no idea how fortunate we are to have been born in his country,’ Sánchez Cogedor told a group of reporters at the airport after he was embraced by family and friends upon arrival [see video in Tweet below].
Sánchez Cogedor had entered Iran months after the football fan embarked in January 2022 on a long trip by foot towards Qatar, with the aim of attending the World Cup there in November-December. However, he was arrested in Iran in October 2022. ALSO READ: Spanish man trekking to World Cup in Doha, reportedly held in Iran prison.
His arrest followed his visit to the tomb of Mahesa Amini, a young Iranian woman whose death while being held by Iran’s morality police for violating Iran’s Islamic dress code sparked protests in the country.
The Iranian Embassy in Spain had said on Sunday, New Year’s Eve, that he had been released.
‘The embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran is pleased to announce the release of Santiago Sánchez Cogedor, the only Spanish citizen detained in Iran,’ the embassy posted on social media.
‘His release comes amid friendly and historic relations between the two countries and in accordance with the law,’ the embassy added.
Sánchez Cogedor’s family had lost all trace of him some weeks before the World Cup started. His last message documenting his adventures on Instagram appeared on 1 October 2022, when he wrote that he was in a village in northern Iraq and heading for the Iranian border.
A voicemail to his parents later broadcast by a television station said he was in Tehran heading for the port of Bandar Abbas, in the Strait of Hormuz, from where he intended to take a boat for Qatar. Some days later his parents learned via the Spanish foreign ministry of his arrest.
On his arrival in Madrid, the 41-year-old Sánchez Cogedor told reporters that he would not comment on politics, but he read what he called a diploma given to him by his fellow prisoners in Iran, that indicated he had ‘passed the test of life’.
Iran is known to still be holding nine other Western nationals, and governments and NGOs accuse Tehran of using them as bargaining chips for its own nationals.
Amini’s death became the symbol of a protest movement against enforced wearing of the hijab, and the ensuing repression of protests saw hundreds of deaths and thousands of arrests.
Tehran has accused the United States of fomenting the protests and had announced in September 2022 the arrest of nine foreign nationals from several European states including France, Italy and Poland on the alleged grounds they were linked to the protests.
🔴 Emocionante recibimiento en el aeropuerto de Madrid al español Santiago Sánchez Cogedor tras haber estado 15 meses detenido en una cárcel de Irán.#Canal24Horas
— RTVE Noticias (@rtvenoticias) January 2, 2024
▶ https://t.co/2z2Jqzx2XW pic.twitter.com/Sb3mij2LIS
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