[ad_1]
MADRID (AP) — A Spanish man trekking from Madrid to Doha for the 2022 FIFA World Cup is believed to be below arrest in Iran the place he went lacking greater than three weeks in the past, his household mentioned Wednesday.
“We discovered this morning from the (Spanish) international ministry that there’s a 99% probability he’s arrested,” Celia Cogedor, the mom of 41-year-old trekker Santiago Sánchez, advised The Related Press.
“We’re full of hope,” she mentioned.
Sánchez’s sister is because of meet Thursday with officers on the Spanish Overseas Ministry in Madrid to study additional particulars.
The international ministry mentioned in an announcement that the Spanish embassy in Tehran is in contact with Iranian authorities about Sánchez. It declined to supply additional particulars.
Iran is being engulfed by mass unrest, triggering fears about Sánchez’s destiny after he stopped contacting his household in Spain on Oct. 2, a day after he crossed the Iraq-Iran border. He had warned his household that communication is likely to be tough in Iran.
The Spanish adventurer deliberate to go to Tehran, the Iranian capital, the place a tv station wished to interview him. His subsequent step would have been Bandar Abbas, a port in southern Iran the place he would hop on a ship to Qatar. However all traces of him vanished even earlier than he reached Tehran, his mother and father mentioned.
His mother and father reported him lacking on Oct. 17. They mentioned Spain’s police and diplomats had been serving to the household.
This was not Sanchez’s first time in Iran. In 2019 the fervent soccer fan cycled an identical path to get from Madrid to Saudi Arabia.
His mother and father say they’re pleased with his adventurous spirit and say his solely goals are to assist others and promote the Actual Madrid soccer workforce.
Sánchez’s disappearance in Iran got here as protesters are rising up throughout the Islamic Republic within the largest antigovernment motion in over a decade. The demonstrations erupted on Sept. 16 over the dying of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old lady taken into custody by Iran’s morality police for allegedly not adhering to the nation’s strict Islamic gown code.
Tehran has violently cracked down on protesters and blamed international enemies and Kurdish teams in Iraq for fomenting the unrest, with out providing proof. The Iranian Intelligence Ministry mentioned authorities had arrested 9 foreigners, largely Europeans, over their alleged hyperlinks to the protests.
[ad_2]
Source link
