A Lebanese official told Reuters that Nizar Zakka, the Lebanese citizen incarcerated in Iran, has been released and left Iran for Beirut.

The Lebanese official says Zakka has left Iran in the company of Abbas Ibrahim, chairman of Lebanon's General Security Directorate.

The official Twitter account of the General Security Directorate released a photo of Zakka and Ibrahim.

On Saturday, the Lebanese media reported that General Ibrahim had traveled to Iran to negotiate the release of Nizar Zakka. Previously the spokesperson for the Islamic Republic Judiciary had told the reporters that the court has agreed to release Zakka due to the request from Michel Aoun, the president of Lebanon and deliberation between Iran’s supreme national security council and “our friends in Hezbollah.”

However, on Monday, Fars, a news agency close to the IRGC claimed that Zakka was “only released due to the request of Seyed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, and no other negotiations have been done with any government official.”

This was Zakka’s fifth trip to Iran. The U.S resident was invited to Iran in 2016 by the Iranian government officials to attend a summit regarding the "role of women in progress" and was arrested by the security forces for “espionage” and sentenced to 10 years in prison and $4 million in fines.