Isolation cell drove scientist to despair: “I thought I was going to commit suicide” | Abroad

“You’re going crazy. It did so much damage, it hurt me physically, ”Moore-Gilbert told Sky News Australia. She was trapped in a four square meter cell for seven months with only a phone to communicate with the guards. “I thought I was going to kill myself.”

The Middle East expert was arrested in Iran in September 2018 while there for a conference. After nine months, she was sentenced to 10 years in prison for espionage. During her imprisonment she resisted the punishment by, among other things, a hunger strike.

‘I could have escaped like this’

In the interview, Moore-Gilbert says she tried to escape once. “I thought to myself, why not? I have nothing to lose. ” Once she got herself up on the wall, she decided to go back to her cell anyway. “I could have escaped to the nearest town, but I don’t speak the local language and I was wearing prison clothes. I was afraid of the consequences if I got caught. ”

Moore-Gilbert was released in 2020 as part of a prisoner swap. Three Iranians who had been arrested abroad were sent back to Iran. In February, the Netherlands signed an initiative against this kind of so-called ‘hostage diplomacy’. Canada initiated the initiative against the detention of foreign citizens in order to exert diplomatic pressure on other countries.

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