A former Iranian security officer said that the journalist opposed to the Iranian regime, Ruhollah Zam, who was executed in Iran on security charges after being lured to Iraq, where he was arrested, was in fact exchanged with a French security officer who was detained in Tehran.

This came as part of an interview conducted by the Iranian "Mubin 24" website, with Akbar Khosh Koshak, who was described by the site as having been an employee of the Foreign Investigations Department of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence for many years.

Koshak recounts, describing the collusion process and how it was carried out between the two parties. A French intelligence officer slipped under a false name and identity into the ranks of the terrorist organization "ISIS" active in Syria and Iraq, to ​​be captured by factions that said they were affiliated with Iran.

Iran expressed its willingness to facilitate the release of the French officer, but this stipulated that Paris assisted the Iranian security in arresting the opposition journalist Ruhollah Zam, who was residing at the time in France.

Paris agreed to the deal, and when Zam, who had French security protection, decided to go to Iraq to visit Najaf and hold meetings there, elements of the French intelligence secured his arrival from Paris airport to Amman airport and then to Baghdad, and followed him to Najaf, where he was arrested by Iran and executed .

According to Koshak, after crossing the Iranian border, the French officer was transferred from Damascus to Istanbul, where he was handed over to French officials there, in cooperation with Turkish intelligence.

Koshak stressed that the process of arresting Zam was carefully planned with the French, so that there was no room for any suspicion of Paris being involved in it.

In 2019, the Iranian authorities announced the arrest of Zam, editor-in-chief of the opposition "Amed News" website, who had been residing in France for years.

In December 2020, the journalist who was covering the opposition demonstrations in Iran in 2017-2018 was sentenced to death, on charges of "carrying out counter-revolutionary activities and collusion with the French, American and Israeli intelligence services."