Freed Journalist Roxana Saberi Leaves Iranian Prison, Lawyer Says

TEHRAN: Iranian-Ameican journalist Roxana Saberi has been released from Evin prison after an Iranian Appeals Court downgraded her spying conviction from its original 8-year term to a lesser, suspended sentence of two years, her lawyer said.
Saberi’s father, Reza, of Fargo, ND, said today in Tehran that he plans to bring his daughter home within the next few days.
Saberi’s lawyer, Abdolsamad Khorramshahi, told the Associated Press that the journalist was now free and “out of jail.”
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said that President Barack Obama was “relieved” by the news of Saberi’s release today. “He was relieved to see that she has been released. We know that this has been a trying time for her family and friends, and he looks forward to welcoming her home to the United States. We want to continue to stress that she was wrongly accused, but welcome this humanitarian gesture,” Gibbs told Reuters.
In London the BBC reports that Saberi left Iran’s notorious Evin prison just hours after her sentence was reduced. Saberi is free to leave the country and is banned from reporting in Iran for five years according the terms of her release, BBC says.
Last week there were reports that Saberi ended a two-week hunger strike that she had been carrying out since her conviction on spying charges.
The Iranian Appeals Court apparently heard Saberi’s case on Sunday, according to Agence France-Presse, and the journalist was said to look “thin and tired” during her court appearance. AFP says the appeals hearing lasted about five hours, in contrast to her original trial which lasted less than 15 minutes, and that the appeal hearling had been arranged to appear “fair and open.”
The Appeals Court also reduced the charge of spying to a lesser charge, one of having access to classified information (instead of the original charge of passing secret information), according to a BBC correspondent in Tehran.
Saberi had been sentenced to eight years in prison by the Iranian Revolutionary Court after a one-day, closed-door trial that found Saberi had used her cover as a journalist to spy on Iranian government institutions and provide information to the U.S. government, according to the charges. Saberi’s family denied the accusations. The Iranian court said that in the trial Saberi had “confessed to espionage charges” her role when she presented her defense. In Iran the charge of spying is a treasonous one and could have carried with it a death sentence.
President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton have been calling for Saberi’s release since before her conviction, when she was initially detained. Obama said, “I have complete confidence that she was not engaging in any sort of espionage.”
“Obviously we continue to take issue with the charges against her and the verdict rendered, but we are very heartened that she has been released and wish her and her family all the very best,” Clinton told an Agence France-Presse reporter.
A native of Fargo, ND, Saberi has been living in Iran for six years and was reporting for the BBC and National Public Radio and writing a book about Iranian culture. In 2006 the Iranian government cancelled her journalist credentials and when Saberi was detained in January, allegedly for illegally buying a bottle of wine, the Iranians said her continued reporting without credentials was an “illegal activity.” After several weeks when many thought the Iranian officials were on the verge of releasing her, it was with great surprise that she was charged with spying. She was then convicted and sentenced to eight years in prison.
Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-ND), one of many who have been working for Saberi’s release, praised the Fargo, ND, community’s efforts to keep the woman’s plight in the spotlight. “They certainly saw to it that Roxana Saberi would not be forgotten for one day,” he said while standing in the journalist’s parents’ neighborhood today, where many trees have been decorated with the trandition yellow ribbons that are exhibited by supporters who want a hostage released. “We could not be happier with today’s news.”

Courtesy of NPPA