A French court on Wednesday refused an American request to extradite an Iranian businessman accused of violating an American embargo on exports to Iran. He had raised American suspicions by purchasing equipment for a front company in Malaysia that was then shipped secretly to Iranian military firms involved in Iran's nuclear program. The French government prosecutor had opposed the request to extradite the businessman, Majid Kakavand, 37, on the grounds that he had not violated French law and that the equipment involved was not necessarily military in nature. Neither France nor the European Union has a general trade embargo on Iran, as the United States does. The court ordered that Kakavand be set free and that his bail of about $260,000 be returned. His passport was given back to him. 'I'm leaving as soon as I can,' Kakavand said in English after the court session. 'I'm going to take a ticket for the first available flight back to Tehran.' The United Stateshad pressed the case hard, and Justice Department officials expressed their unhappiness. Although American officials did not show up for Wednesday's judgment, they had appeared at various hearings in the case since Kakavand was arrested in March 2009 on an American warrant when he arrived at a Paris airport with his wife for a vacation. He was released on bail in late August. A Justice Department spokesman, Dean Boyd, said in Washington that efforts to arrest Kakavand would continue. 'Although we're disappointed by the French court ruling, we will continue to seek justice in this matter,' Boyd said. 'Efforts to apprehend Kakavand are ongoing and should he come into U.S. custody, he will stand trial for his alleged crimes.' The American indictment of Kakavand accuses him of exporting to an embargoed country, money laundering and goods smuggling. With two associates, it says, he ordered electronic goods online from American companies from January 2006 until December 2008 and had them shipped to a front company in Malaysia, which is not embargoed, then shipped at least 30 deliveries worth $1.2 million to Iranian military companies on U.S. watch lists. The equipment included capacitors, resistors, connectors, reflectometers and pressure sensors, which the Americans call dual-use equipment intended for military purposes. But Adm. Jean-Louis Barbier, a French weapons expert who went through the list of items at the request of the defense, said he checked it against current regulations and found that the items were not dual use. 'What he was importing was dual use in the same sense that a switch or a cable can be dual use, but nothing more,' he said in an interview. 'If this is dual use, then everything else is.' But one of the Iranian companies Kakavand bought for, Iran Electronics Industry, was put on the European Union blacklist in June 2008. The last transaction between him and the company took place in April 2008. The other company, Iran Communications Industry, makes military and civilian communication equipment and is now on the European blacklist. The French news media have suggested that in return for Kakavand's release, Iran offered to free a French woman held in Iran since July 1 on charges of espionage for photographing and e-mailing photographs of rallies protesting June's election results. She also e-mailed the photos to the French Embassy in Tehran. Both governments deny any connection between the cases. The woman, Clotilde Reiss, 24, was teaching in Isfahan and was arrested at the airport in Tehran on her way home to France. She was released in August to the custody of the French Embassy in Tehran and is awaiting a verdict since her trial appeared to end in January. Since then, French officials have said little about her case. Previously, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner called the charges against her 'absurd,' and President Nicolas Sarkozy dismissed them as 'pure fantasy.'American officials said privately that they believed that the cases of Kakavand and Reiss were clearly linked. One American official close to the Kakavand case said Iran had been 'dangling' the possible release of Reiss in exchange for releasing Kakavand. 'They've put enormous pressure on the French government, and looming in the background of this is the dangling of a potential prisoner swap,' the official said, requesting anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. After the court verdict on Wednesday, Kakavand said in an interview, 'I heard about the case of Clotilde Reiss from the news, but for me this decision was pure law and justice, not a deal.' He said that 'if Clotilde Reiss is proven innocent I wish she gets released soon, but in my case it has already been proven that I was innocent.' His lawyer, Diane Francois, said the decision was 'an important message for France's sovereignty.' She added, 'It says, 'We apply laws and don't cave in to pressure.' ' 