Melbourne academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert, who spent 804 days in an Iranian prison, has revealed a “sleazy” prison boss took a “perverse” interest in her, forcing her to stay locked up.
Dr Moore-Gilbert, a lecturer in Islamic studies at the University of Melbourne, returned to Australia in November 2020 after the federal government negotiated her release from Iran in a prisoner swap deal.
She was arrested at Tehran Airport in September 2018, with authorities accusing her of being a spy and sentencing her to 10 years in prison.
Despite continually denying the charges, the 33-year-old spent 804 days in some of Iran’s most notorious prisons, living in horrific conditions and subject to psychological torture.
Dr Moore-Gilbert has now revealed shocking new details about her torturous time in the prison, claiming the prison boss kept her locked up because he wanted a relationship.
“He wanted some sort of romantic relationship with me,” she told 60 Minutes in a preview for Sunday’s show.
“It was a perverse romantic interest.”
The academic explained how she remained incarcerated for six or seven months longer than she should have been because the prison boss was in love with her and she had “bruised his ego”.
“Unbelievable, I know,” she said.
Dr Moore-Gilbert was kept in a tiny cell in freezing temperatures with constant noise and was even beaten by guards during her imprisonment.
She said the prison boss’ infatuation was so intense that he had arranged for her to have a birthday party and even provided a cake.
“He had complete and utter control over every facet of my life,” Dr Moore-Gilbert said.
She endured multiple hunger strikes while fighting for freedom.
The academic revealed to Sky News last year that she turned into a “crazy lady” after being kept in a “two-by-two metre box”.
“It’s psychological torture … it is so damaging … my emotional state was just so volatile,” she explained.
Dr Moore-Gilbert even considered killing herself at one stage.
However, she says the betrayal of her Russian-Israeli husband who had moved on with another woman caused the hardest blow when she returned to Australia in November 2020.
Dr Moore-Gilbert said her mother broke the news of her husband’s affair once she landed back in Australia.
She said she knew there was a problem with her marriage 12 months before she arrived home but didn’t anticipate the end of the relationship.
“He had changed and I was upset and disappointed that he wasn’t supporting me to the extent that I would have hoped he would. He stopped telling me he loved me over the phone,” she said in the Sky News interview.
Dr Moore-Gilbert discovered her Russian-Israeli husband, Ruslan Hodorov, who she married in 2017, had been having an affair with her colleague and PhD supervisor Dr Kylie Baxter.
Dr Moore-Gilbert and her family were kept in the dark over the secret up until her release despite others being aware it was happening.
Dr Moore-Gilbert said Dr Baxter was acting as a liaison between the University of Melbourne and her family and husband after her arrest.
“The nature of it given my closeness to both of them was very disappointing fxjmtzywor me. In a way it has been harder for me to process and come to terms with that than it has been with what happened to me in Iran,” she said.
Government sources confirmed the Iranians’ discovery that Dr Moore-Gilbert was in a relationship with an Israeli was the initial trigger for her arrest at Tehran airport.
