Iran to Free U.S. Woman Held With Two Men Over Spy Claim
Iran to Free U.S. Woman Held Over Spying Allegations
Stringer/Getty Images
Iran accused Sarah Shourd, seen here, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal of illegal entry and spying after they crossed into Iran from Iraqi Kurdistan in July 2009.
Iran accused Sarah Shourd, seen here, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal of illegal entry and spying after they crossed into Iran from Iraqi Kurdistan in July 2009. Photographer: Stringer/Getty Images
Sarah Shourd, one of three U.S. citizens detained last year by Iran after they crossed the border with Iraq, will be released tomorrow in an act of clemency, Iranian state-run news agencies said.
Shourd will be freed at 9 a.m. local time in Tehran’s Esteghlal Hotel, where the mothers of the three Americans visited them in May, the Mehr news agency said today, citing the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. A ceremony will be held to mark her release, according to the Fars news agency.
The decision to free Shourd came after Iranian officials, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, “closely studied the case,” Fars cited Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast as saying. There was no information from the news services on Shourd’s male companions.
Iran accused Shourd, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal of illegal entry and spying after they crossed into Iran from Iraqi Kurdistan in July 2009. The Obama administration has said the three were “hikers who wandered across an unmarked border” and that they had never worked for the U.S. government.
The gesture to free Shourd marks the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, and symbolizes Islamic compassion and Iran’s “special regard for women,” Mehmanparast was cited as saying by state-run Press TV.
Shourd is from California, while Bauer is a Minnesota native and Fattal is from Pennsylvania. U.S. senators from their home states held a joint news conference in Washington on May 4 to appeal to Ahmadinejad for their release.
To contact the reporter on this story: Caroline Alexander in London at calexander1@bloomberg.net
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