TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran has charged three detained US citizens with espionage, the official IRNA news agency quoted a prosecutor as saying yesterday, but Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said there was no evidence to back the charges.
The three, Shane Bauer, 27, Sarah Shourd, 31, and Josh Fattal, 27, were held after they crossed into Iran from northern Iraq at the end of July. Their families said they strayed across the border accidentally. “The three are charged with espionage,” Tehran general prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi told IRNA. “Investigations continue into the three detained Americans in Iran.”
The case comes at a time of higher tensions between Iran and the West over Tehran’s nuclear plans and after Iranian officials accused foreign nations of fuelling the worst unrest for three decades that erupted after a disputed June presidential election.
The United States has sent strong messages to Iran urging the release of the three hikers, calling on the authorities to exercises “compassion” towards the three Americans. “We believe strongly that there is no evidence to support any charge whatsoever,” Clinton said in Berlin yesterday.
“And we would renew our request on behalf of these three young people and their families that the Iranian government exercise compassion and release them so they can return home, and we will continue to make that case,” she added.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad suggested in an interview with the American television network NBC in September that the Americans’ release might be linked to the release of Iranian diplomats he said were being held by US troops in Iraq.
“Unfortunately they crossed the border illegally,” Ahmadinejad told reporters at an Islamic summit in Istanbul.
“Every country has a punishment for those who cross borders illegally. We are not happy about that, but now they will have to go to the court and convince the judge they did nothing illegal,” the president said, adding:
“I hope this is not a problem, but it is up to the judiciary to judge them.”
Under Iran’s Islamic sharia law, espionage is a crime that is punishable by death. Some Iranian officials linked the illegal entry of the Americans to the turmoil that erupted after Iran’s June poll.
Ahmadinejad’s re-election on June 12, sparked Iran’s worst unrest since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Authorities have denied any vote-rigging and portrayed the unrest as a foreign-backed bid to undermine the Islamic state. Dolatabadi said the case of a Danish student, detained during a rally on Nov. 4 to mark the 30th anniversary of the seizure of the US embassy that also saw opposition demonstrations, was under investigation.
“This accused Danish citizen has introduced himself as a reporter but he holds no official press accreditation. Investigations about him continue,” he said. “Today the Danish embassy lawyer was allowed to meet the prisoner.”
