A BRITISH tourist has been locked up for 58 days in an Iranian jail for taking a photo.
Andrew Barber, 43, was accused of spying because the image – meant to be of a sunrise – showed pylons near a power plant, The Sun reported.
Cops then searched his laptop and found photos Mr Barber had taken of buildings in Iraq, where he worked for delivery firm DHL.
They thought he had taken them in Iran, and accused him of espionage.
A judge then ordered him into Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, which houses political detainees – some awaiting execution.
“When the judge called me a spy, I went weak at the knees and started staggering with the shock,” Mr Barber said.
The prisoner was refused access to the British embassy, blindfolded in interrogation then put in a cell. He was subjected to psychological torment, dubbed “white torture”.
He said: “I had no furniture, and almost no natural light, only a bright fluorescent tube that stayed on 24/7, even when you were trying to sleep. I was allowed out of my cell ten minutes a day to use the toilet. I started to lose my mind after about seven days. It was hard to keep sane because I had no information about how long I was going to be there for.”
Mr Barber, of South London, said he survived by making playing cards from cardboard cups and playing solitaire.
He was eventually moved to share a cell with an Iranian prisoner before being handed over to the British embassy.
He had been in Iran for three weeks when held on June 21 in Ahwaz, in the south.
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