The National

France on Wednesday expelled a prominent Iranian it accuses of promoting on behalf of the country and having links to its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, his lawyer and Iranian officials said.

Bashir Biazar is reportedly a former senior figure in state TV in Iran and Paris-based activists were left frustrated by his deportation after filing a torture complaint against him last month.

Mr Biazar has been held in administrative detention since the start of June and was subject to a deportation order from the French Interior Ministry.

Mohammad Rahimi, the head of public relations for the office of the Iranian president, wrote on X that Mr Biazar "has been released and is on his way back to his homeland".

Mr Rahimi said Mr Biazar had been "illegally arrested and imprisoned in France a few weeks ago".

But a representative of the French Interior Ministry told a hearing earlier on Wednesday that Mr Biazar was an "agent of influence, an agitator who promotes the views of the Islamic Republic of Iran and, more worryingly, harasses opponents of the regime".

The representative accused him of filming journalists from Iranian opposition media in September in front of the Iranian consulate in Paris after an arson attack on the building.