Kylie Moore-Gilbert thanks Prime Minister Scott Morrison after release from detention in Iran

After spending 804 days in an Iran prison and finding her husband had an affair upon her return home, Kylie Moore-Gilbert has met with Scott Morrison.

An Aussie academic who was recently freed from a horror Iranian prison has met with the Prime Minister and thanked him for his help getting her out of a “tight spot”.

University of Melbourne lecturer Kylie Moore-Gilbert was released in November after spending more than two years behind bars over allegations of espionage.

Her return home was the result of sensitive, high-level diplomatic negotiations between Iranian and Australian officials.

Last week, Dr Moore-Gilbert met with Prime Minister Scott Morrison, she revealed in a tweet on Tuesday.

She wrote the Prime Minister was well-informed about her case and that he had referred to it as a “hostage-taking”.

The social media post included a photograph of the pair standing on the lawn at the Prime Minister’s Sydney residence Kirribilli House.

Last week I had the genuine pleasure of meeting @ScottMorrisonMP and his lovely wife Jenny. He was warm, open, frank and well-informed about the details of my case, which he had no qualms about calling a hostage-taking. Thanks for helping get me out of a tight spot ScoMo! pic.twitter.com/2agDvXcUDp

— Kylie Moore-Gilbert (@KMooreGilbert) February 16, 2021

“Last week I had the genuine pleasure of meeting @ScottMorrisonMP and his lovely wife Jenny,” Dr Moore-Gilbert wrote.

“He was warm, open, frank and well-informed about the details of my case, which he had no qualms about calling a hostage-taking. Thanks for helping get me out of a tight spot ScoMo!”

Dr Moore-Gilbert was stopped from returning to Melbourne after attending a conference in Qom in Iran in August 2018.

She was accused of espionage and put through a secret trial, after which she was sentenced to 10 years prison, despite no evidence of her alleged crimes having been publicly presented.

Dr Moore-Gilbert spent two years in an Iranian jail.

She was been detained from September 2018, at times in the notorious Qarchak prison, which has been described as an unsanitary and insect-infested place where the sewage system frequently overflows and where COVID-19 has been running rampant.

Mr Morrison has previously described the work to free the academic as an “absolute high priority for our government”.

“We have always rejected her conviction and detention, and I join with all Australians in praising Dr Moore-Gilbert and her family for their courage, strength and patience as we have all worked tirelessly together to secure her release,” he said in November.

KYLIE’S HUSBAND’S AFFAIR

It was the ultimate betrayal. Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert spent 804 days in Iranian prisons, mostly in solitary confinement in a 3m x 2m cell with not enough warm clothes or blankets for the freezing temperatures.

She also went through psychological torture, with other prisoners at the same jails saying that they were regularly forced into fake executions.

But back in Australia, her Russian-Israeli husband Ruslan Hodorov was having an affair with her University of Melbourne colleague and PhD supervisor Dr Kylie Baxter.

Despite sources revealing some other people were aware of the affair, Dr Moore-Gilbert would only learn of the betrayal after arriving back in Australia in November last year.

The University of Melbourne was informed of Dr Baxter and Mr Hodorov’s relationship on November 29 last year, two days after Dr Moore-Gilbert landed in Australia.

Dr Moore-Gilbert, 33, is now divorcing Mr Hodorov, who was next of kin and a point of contact for the Australian government advisers working on her case.

He kept up the facade of a doting husband to her family during her jail ordeal on spying charges she always strongly denied.

Friends of the couple revealed Mr Hodorov, 31, and Dr Baxter, 43, who was married with children, secretly began their affair about a year after Dr Moore-Gilbert’s arrest, which was in September 2018.

Mr Hodorov had been keeping Dr Moore-Gilbert’s family, who live in Bathurst, NSW, informed of work on her case.

They only found out about his new relationship at the same time as Dr Moore-Gilbert.

Originally published as Kylie Moore-Gilbert thanks Prime Minister Scott Morrison after release from detention in Iran