The Islamic Republic of Iran announced this Sunday the release of the Spaniard Santiago Sánchez Cogedor, imprisoned in this country in October 2022 when he was arrested after visiting the grave of the activist Masha Amini, during a solidarity trip on foot between Madrid and Qatar, where he intended arrive to cheer on the Spanish team. Since his arrest, accused of espionage, Santiago Sánchez has experienced an absolute ordeal in one of the toughest prisons in the country, Evin 209, where the Spanish ambassador in Tehran appeared to free him.
«The Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran is pleased to report the release of Santiago Sánchez Cogedor, the only Spanish citizen imprisoned in Iran. “His release is carried out within the framework of friendly and historical relations between the two countries and in compliance with laws,” the Iranian embassy in Spain wrote at around five in the afternoon on its official account on the X network – before called Twitter.
However, time passed between the Iranians’ announcement and the final liberation, during which fear and nervousness spread among friends and family. As EL MUNDO learned, the Spanish ambassador to Iran himself, Ángel Losada, traveled by car to the prison to assist in the process.
Santiago had been documenting his entire trip on social media, often dressed in a purple Real Madrid kit. He left San Sebastián de los Reyes months before his arrest and entered Iran in the midst of unrest over the death of Masha Amini, who died in police custody after being arrested for wearing her veil incorrectly. Along the way he had the goal of planting 2,000 trees and helping the local communities with which he shared nights along the way. Traces of him were lost on October 2, 2022, when he published a smiling photograph on the border of the Islamic country next to the entry sign to Iran. «He meets some Iranians on the border. They tell him ‘Welcome to Iran’ and they take him to the grave of the murdered girl,” a friend from Santiago told THE WORLD last February. There, Santiago took photos “oblivious to current events in the country” and some non-uniformed police detained him while the Iranians he had just met ran away. “Then three guys covered his eyes, put him in a car and took him to jail,” he said.
His destination was the Tabriz prison, in the province of East Azerbaijan, where he spent more than two months until he was located and the Spanish ambassador traveled with a group of GEOs the road between Tehran and Tabriz to meet Santiago for the first time. . After these first steps, he was transferred to Tehran. That transfer ends with Sánchez Cogedor in the fearsome Evin 209 prison, considered the harshest and savage prison in Iran. Amnesty International reports describe “a terrible level of brutality” in a prison where former detainees describe harrowing, windowless cells, “screams of pain” and “the stench of sweat and vomit.”