A South Korean citizen who was jailed in Iran on spying charges last year has been released and plans to return home soon, a government source said Wednesday.

The 43-year-old South Korean man, surnamed Kim, was convicted of espionage in an Iranian court last September for taking pictures of some Iranian government facilities while he was traveling the country in last 2012.

He was given a seven-year prison sentence and had been serving the prison term.

"The citizen of ours arrested for taking pictures of sensitive facilities in Iran was released and transferred to the South Korean Embassy in Iran last Monday," the government source said on condition of anonymity. "He will go back home in the near future."

South Korea has requested the Iranian government to release him on humanitarian grounds because he did not intend to spy on the country and that he was not familiar with Iranian law or the situation there, the government source said, adding that the Iranian government accepted the request in consideration of their bilateral relations. (Yonhap)