Iran has acknowledged for the first time that it is holding three Australian nationals under spying charges.
Blogging couple Mark Firkin and Jolie King, who are facing up to ten years in jail, are believed to be two of the three in prison.
Semi-official news agency Tasnim quoted judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili today as saying the three had been charged in two separate cases.
He said two Australians, likely the blogging couple Mark Firkin and Jolie King, had been detained over using a drone to take pictures and video of military areas and other unauthorised zones.
He said the other Australian faced charges of spying for another country, likely University of Melbourne lecturer Kylie Moore-Gilbert who has been held in prison since last October.
All three prisoners are being held in the notorious Evin prison.
Dr Moore-Gilbert has been held in solitary confinement in the prison since October last year, with fears she was secretly convicted and jailed for 10 years.
She is believed to have been researching Iran's relationship with the Shia community of Bahrain after a sectarian uprising in 2011, which is controversial in Iran and may be related to her arrest on suspected espionage charges.
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Australia said last week it was pressing Iran to free those held.
Building designer Jolie King and construction manager Mark Firkin were arrested in July after they were caught operating a drone near Tehran without a licence.
The pair were in the country while undertaking a round-the-world driving expedition they had been documenting online that started in Western Australia and was due to finish in London.
The couple's families said the whole situation is a 'misunderstanding' and that they were unaware of the strict drone laws employed by the country.
The couple had previously said that they wanted to share their journey online to show that countries with a bad reputation are still okay to travel to.
'Our biggest motivation behind the vlogs [video blogs] is to hopefully inspire anyone wanting to travel, and also try to break the stigma around travelling to countries which get a bad rap in the media', they said in a post.
Ms King and Mr Firkin were seized as relations between Iran and the West plummet amid tensions around the Gulf of Oman, with sources saying Tehran wants to use them as a bargaining chip.
It is thought Iran wants to use the three prisoners to secure the release of Negar Ghodskani, a 40-year-old Iranian woman who was arrested in Australia in 2017 and currently facing jail in the US over a conspiracy to export prohibited technology.
The bureau's travel advice for Iran is 'reconsider your need to travel' and 'do not travel' in some parts of the country bordering Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan.
The travel warning says foreigners are of increased risk of being 'arbitrarily detained, or arrested'. The Australian government said it is providing consular assistance to the families.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
