Member Since: 1/3/2010
Posts: 21,098
|
Iran Frees American Hikers
Quote:
Reporting from Cairo and Tehran— Two American hikers convicted of spying in Iran and sentenced to eight years in prison were freed Wednesday in a legal and diplomatic drama that ended after negotiations over bail and infighting between the Iranian president and the country's judiciary.
Two American hikers convicted of spying in Iran and sentenced to eight years in prison were freed Wednesday in a legal and diplomatic drama that ended after negotiations over bail and infighting between the Iranian president and the country's judiciary.
Shane Bauer and Joshua Fattal, both 29-year-old graduates of UC Berkeley, were released from Tehran's Evin Prison after judges agreed to accept a combined bail of $1 million. The Americans were turned over to the Swiss ambassador, who represents U.S. interests in Iran, and were expected to be flown out of the country, although it was uncertain where they were to be taken.
The two men got into a car with envoys from the Persian Gulf country of Oman, which was involved in negotiating their release and reportedly had a plane waiting at the Tehran airport. The car left the prison in a convoy guarded by a police escort.
"They are bailed out," said a statement from Iran's judiciary.
The appearance of the two hikers outside the prison walls ends a two-year ordeal that further strained relations between Washington and Tehran. Bauer, Fattal and their companion, Sarah Shourd, were arrested in 2009 while backpacking along the Iran-Iraq border. They were accused of espionage, a charge they denied. Shourd was released last year on $500,000 bail.
Their lawyer, Masoud Shafii, said: "Now we can say they are finally free. They can go to the U.S. the way Sarah did."
Expectations that the two men would be released were raised last week when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced they would be freed as a goodwill gesture. But their fate quickly became ensnared in the struggle between Ahmadinejad and Iran's conservative judiciary, which embarrassed the president by delaying its decision.
"Ahmadinejad was not supposed to have a say in releasing the U.S. hikers," said Farid Modarresi, a political analyst in Tehran. "But he sold the news to the foreign media to promote his own image" before his arrival at the United Nations on Tuesday.
After he landed in New York, Ahmadinejad told ABC News that releasing the Americans would be "a humanitarian decision."
Bauer, a freelance journalist, grew up in Onamia, Minn., and Fattal, an environmental activist, is from suburban Philadelphia. Bauer proposed marriage to Shroud, who lives in Oakland, while in prison. The two men last saw family members in May 2010 when their mothers visited them in Tehran.
The hikers said they mistakenly crossed into Iran while exploring the rugged Kurdish region in northern Iraq.
|
LA Times
They're finally free. 
Death @ the President making seem like he was the one doing this on some goodwill ish. 
|
|
|
|
