By Ladane Nasseri
With assistance from Nicole Gaouette in New York. Editors: Terry Atlas, Leslie
Hoffecker
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at
barden@bloomberg.net
Sept. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Two U.S. nationals held in Iran on
charges of espionage and illegal entry into the country were freed from prison
and left from Mehrabad International Airport in the Iranian capital on a flight
to Oman, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal were released from Evin prison today
and handed over to the Swiss Embassy in Tehran, Masoud Shafiei, their lawyer,
said earlier today in a telephone interview. The Swiss mission represents the
interests of the U.S., which doesn’t have diplomatic ties with Iran.
The two Americans were released after an Iranian judge signed
documents today approving the payment of $500,000 each on their behalf,
according to Shafiei, who said that Oman had arranged for the money.
Bauer and Fattal, both 29, have said that they were hiking in
Iraq in July 2009 and mistakenly wandered across the border. The U.S. has
repeatedly called for their release. Their prolonged detention has added to
tensions between Iran and the U.S. and highlighted frictions among Iran’s ruling
elite.
Video of Swiss and Omani diplomats waiting in cars near the
prison was broadcast by the state-run Press TV news channel today. Oman also
acted as a facilitator last year by organizing the payment for the release of
Sarah Shourd, another U.S. citizen who was hiking with Bauer and Fattal and also
was arrested.
Revolutionary Court
Shourd, who became engaged to Bauer while both were in jail, was
released in September 2010 on $500,000 bail. She left for the U.S. immediately
via Oman and didn’t return to Iran to stand trial. The men were sentenced by the
Revolutionary Court on Aug. 21 to eight years in prison.
Shourd joined Bauer’s parents and sisters and Fattal’s parents
and brother in Muscat, Oman’s capital. “We have waited for nearly 26 months for
this moment and the joy and relief at Shane and Josh’s long-awaited freedom
knows no bounds,” the families said in a statement.
News of the men’s release was announced shortly before Iran’s
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in New York for the United Nations General
Assembly, where world leaders gather each year.
Retired U.S. Ambassador William G. Miller was among the
individuals and groups who worked to arrange the high-level meetings that led to
the Americans’ release through Search for Common Ground, a Washington-based
organization that focuses on conflict resolution.
Signal from Iran
The timing of Bauer’s and Fattal’s release “may very well have
something to do with the timing of Ahmadinejad’s presence in New York,” said
Miller, who served in Iran for five years and was ambassador to the Ukraine.
“This is a signal from the Iranians that they’re interested in
talking,” Miller said in a telephone interview. After 32 years of mutual
isolation, he said, the Iranian move is important.
“It’s a good gesture and compassionate gesture,” he said.
The release process was complicated by internal conflicts
between the Iranian president and other political bodies, with officials making
contradictory remarks.
Ahmadinejad told NBC News in an interview aired on Sept. 13 that
he was arranging for Fattal and Bauer to be released “in a couple of days” on
humanitarian grounds. The following day, Iran’s judiciary said that their
release wasn’t “imminent” and that legitimate information on the matter would
only come from the judiciary.
Held in U.S.
The arrest and detention of foreign nationals on charges of
spying isn’t unprecedented in Iran, which accuses the U.S. and its allies of
seeking to topple the Islamic government. Officials in Tehran also criticize the
U.S. for holding a number of Iranians whom Iran considers political
detainees.
At least 10 Iranians are being held in U.S. prisons, said
William Beeman, the chairman of the department of anthropology at the University
of Minnesota.
“They were apprehended in Europe, rendered against their will to
the United States and convicted of violating trade sanctions,” he said.
The Iranians are “being held largely incognito,” Beeman wrote in
an e-mail yesterday. “When defense lawyers try to locate them, they are moved.
This is partly why we don’t have an accurate list of these people.”
In February 2010, Ahmadinejad said Iran may be ready to exchange
Fattal and Bauer for Iranians held in the U.S., an overture that at the time was
dismissed by the State Department.
UN Sanctions
The United Nations has imposed a series of sanctions on Iran for
its nuclear program, which the U.S. alleges is a cover for building atomic
weapons. Iran rejects that assertion and says it needs nuclear technology to
provide energy for its growing population.
Prior to their detention, Shourd and Bauer had lived together in
Syria’s capital, Damascus, where she learned Arabic and taught English,
according to freethehikers.org, a website set up to help gain their freedom.
Fattal is an environmentalist who was visiting Damascus before the three headed
to Iraq, according to the website.
Bauer is a Minnesota native, Fattal is from Pennsylvania and
Shourd is from California.
In 2007, Iran sparked a crisis when it seized 15 U.K. sailors
and marines it accused of trespassing in Iranian waters and held them for two
weeks. Two years earlier, Iran jailed a Frenchman and a German citizen who had
strayed into Iranian waters during a fishing trip. Sentenced to 18 months in
jail, they were freed after being granted clemency by Iran’s supreme leader,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
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