Marcus Hellwig

Marcus Hellwig (* November 26, 1965 in Wuppertal ) is a German journalist for the Bild am Sonntag. Together with his colleague Jens Koch, he was arrested one day after his arrival in Iran on 10 October 2010 and sat until 19 February 2011 detention.

Arrest

On October 9, 2010 Hellwig traveled together with the press photographers Jens Koch on a tourist visa to Iran to investigate the case of Sakineh Ashtiani. To this end, they interviewed without government approval and journalistic accreditation Ashtiani 's lawyer, Hutan Kian, and her son Sadschad Qaderzadeh. Shortly after the beginning of the conversation interrupted Iranian security authorities arrested both the interview and Hellwig and cooking as well as the lawyer and the son of Ashtiani.

According to the spokesperson of the Ministry of Justice Gholam -Hossein Mohseni - Ejei is one of Ashtiani family related person drawn over the visit of two foreigners suspected and have given the authorities a clue.

Allegations of Iranian judicial

Iran accuses the journalists to be entered without official accreditation to Iran, and to be followed up with an unauthorized interview to a journalist. The German Embassy in Tehran writes in her entry instructions for German journalists:

Hellwig and Koch confirmed the allegations in interviews with Iranian state television and admitted to have been " egged on " by Mina Ahadi, an exiled Iranian political activist. While various media reported that Iran had officially charged with espionage, but this was refuted by the Iranian government.

On 1 January 2011 Sakineh Ashtiani announced in a press conference for foreign media announced that she wanted to sue those who "have brought shame to me and the country. " Observers assume that the condemned man was forced to these statements, or at least hoped, thereby influence the Iranian judiciary to avert the enforcement of their judgment.