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In August a Swedish-Iranian employee of cosmetics firm Oriflame was charged in Iran for establishing a pyramid scheme and deriving illegal earnings from it.

Now the man -- the company's local sales manager -- has been released on bail and has left the country, the Swedish foreign ministry told Swedish Radio.

The news came as an Iranian delegation arrived in Sweden to visit the Riksdag and the foreign ministry.

Iranian authorities shut down the Tehran office of Swedish direct-sales cosmetics company Oriflame on August 22, arresting five of its employees amid allegations that the firm was running a pyramid scheme and was possibly backed by a spy agency. A week later, Iran's Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi accused the firm of trying to harm Iran's security.

"Oriflame intended to fight the (Iranian) system. There are no economic reasons behind the company," Iran's intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi was quoted by state television as telling reporters at the Imam Khomeini mausoleum in Tehran.

According to Oriflame, which flatly rejects the accusations, four of the five people arrested have now been released, including the one Swedish citizen, who had returned to the Scandinavian country.

Neither the foreign ministry nor Oriflame would provide the man's name or reveal details of how much bail had been paid to secure his release. "For us, he's a Swedish citizen, so the case is treated as a consular case," ministry spokeswoman Cecilia Julin said, explaining how Stockholm had handled the case.

However, she said, Swedish officials were never "granted the consular right to meet him because Iranian authorities said he was an Iranian citizen and they don't recognize the double citizenship."

The company's chief financial officer said in August that the company was not involved in any political activities and had not been told why its Iranian operations were shut down.

"We are a cosmetics company, we are selling direct. We are of course not involved in any political activities in the country. It is very very difficult to comment on" the accusations, Oriflame's chief financial officer Gabriel Bennet told AFP.