WUNRN
IRAN - AMERICAN-IRANIAN WOMAN
JOURNALIST - CONVICTED OF SPYING
By
Ramin Mostaghim and Jeffrey Fleishman
April 18, 2009
Reporting from Cairo and Tehran -- An
Iranian American journalist accused of spying for the U.S.
was sentenced by an Iranian court Saturday to eight years in prison, a move likely to strain the Obama administration's
recent overtures to improve relations with Tehran.
Roxana Saberi, 31, who had reported for the BBC and National Public Radio, had
faced espionage charges during a trial Monday before Iran's Revolutionary Court.
"The eight-year
sentence is true. I will appeal the verdict," said Saberi's lawyer,
Abdul-Samad Khorramshahi. It was not known if she was convicted Saturday or
after her court appearance.
Saberi, who was arrested nearly three months ago and is being held in Tehran's Evin Prison, could have received up to 10 years in
prison or even the death penalty. She was charged with spying on Iran,
in the guise of a journalist, and passing information and documents on to U.S. intelligence services.
The U.S. had condemned the accusations against Saberi as
"baseless and without foundation." On Saturday, President Obama said
he was "deeply disappointed" by the conviction, a White House
spokesman said.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Washington would "continue to vigorously raise our concerns to
the Iranian government. Our thoughts are with her parents and family during
this difficult time."
The sentencing followed indications Thursday by Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad that the Islamic Republic wanted to improve relations with the West
and would offer proposals to resolve the standoff over his country's nuclear
program. It is uncertain what effect Saberi's case will have on Washington's
diplomatic strategy, but it puts pressure on Obama at a time when Iran's
influence is growing in the Middle
East.
"This is a shocking miscarriage of justice," said Sen. Byron Dorgan
of North Dakota, where Saberi grew up and was named Miss North Dakota in
1997. Dorgan, a Democrat, added in a statement that the "Iranian
government has held a secret trial, will not make public any evidence, and
sentenced an American citizen to eight years in prison for a crime she didn't
commit. I call on the Iranian government to show compassion."
The deputy prosecutor for the Revolutionary Court had told Iran's
media that Saberi, who holds dual U.S. and Iranian citizenship, confessed to the charges.
Saberi's father, Reza, who traveled to Iran to visit his daughter and follow the trial, told the
Agence France-Presse news agency: "Roxana said in court that her earlier
confessions were not true and she told me she had been tricked into believing
that she would be released if she cooperated. . . . Her denial is documented in
her case, but apparently they did not pay attention to it."
In an interview with NPR, Reza Saberi said his daughter wants to go on a hunger
strike "to draw the attention of the Iranian authorities who have
sentenced her without justifiable cause."
The timing of the sentencing indicated that Iranian politics might be at play,
including a move by conservatives to scuttle chances for rapprochement with Washington
or to use the journalist as a bargaining chip for the U.S.
to release Iranian spies held in Iraq.
The verdict is an attempt by Iran to
"intimidate the intellectuals and dissidents in the less than two months
before the country's elections so that they dare not stick their heads
out," said Reza Kaviani, an analyst based in Tehran. "The heavy sentence against Roxana is a message to
all intellectuals. . . . I do hope her case will be on the negotiating
table" between Washington and Tehran.
But Mojtaba Bigdeli, a former spokesman for the Hezbollah Islamic movement in Iran, said: "It's normal for somebody who has violated
our law to be sentenced. It has nothing to do with [international] bargaining
chips or with President Obama."
Saberi had been living in Tehran for six years. Iranian authorities rescinded her press
credentials in 2006, but she continued working on a book and reporting for
media outlets.
Her case was taken up by human-rights groups as another sign of shrinking civil
liberties and press freedoms under the country's hard-line Islamic government.
In the past, Iran has blamed the U.S. for using journalists to instigate opposition to
Ahmadinejad and the nation's supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
"We are deeply distressed by this harsh and unwarranted sentence,"
said Vivian Schiller, the chief executive of NPR. "Through her work for
NPR over several years, we know her as an established and respected
professional journalist. We appeal to all of those who share our concerns to
ask that the Iranian authorities show compassion and allow her to return home
to the United
States
immediately with her parents."
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