Iran's Ahmadinejad urges 'justice' for US reporter

Monday, April 20, 2009 at 9:17 PM Posted by Beijing News


Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for fair treatment of Roxana Saberi, the US journalist given an eight year prison term on spying charges that the United States says are false.

Ahmadinejad told the Tehran prosecutor to examine the cases against both Saberi and an Iranian-Canadian blogger who has been behind bars since November, state news agency IRNA reported Sunday.

"You must do what is needed to secure justice ... in examining these people's charges," the president's chief of staff Abdolreza Sheikholeslami said in a letter to prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi.

"Take care that the defendants have all the legal freedoms and rights to defend themselves against the charges."

Saberi, 31, a former US beauty queen with dual Iranian and US citizenship, was convicted on April 13 by an Iranian revolutionary court of spying for the United States during a closed-door trial.

The verdict, made public on Saturday, disappointed US President Barack Obama, who denied that Saberi was a spy and demanded her release.

"She is an American citizen and I have complete confidence that she was not engaging in any sort of espionage," Obama said.

"She was an Iranian-American who was interested in the country which her family came from, and it is appropriate for her to be treated as such and to be released."

Japan said Monday that the jailing of Saberi was regrettable and that Tokyo hopes to be a mediator between Washington and Tehran.

"I regret such an outcome," government spokesman Takeo Kawamura said.

"As for the future of the US-Iran relationship, which is showing signs of detente... I think we need to play a mediator role given that Japan has a warm relationship with Iran," he said.

"Japan is paying close attention to the issue, even though Japan would not directly interfere in the matter."

Saberi's lawyer has said he would appeal the verdict, which is the harshest sentence yet for a dual national on security charges in Iran.

She has been held since late January, when she was initially reported to have been arrested for buying alcohol, an illegal act in the Islamic republic.

US-born Saberi, who is also of Japanese descent, has reported for US National Public Radio, the BBC and Fox News, and has been living in Iran for the past six years.

In March, the foreign ministry said Saberi's press card was revoked in 2006 and that she had been working in Iran "illegally" since then.

Ahmadinejad's intervention came a day before a UN conference against racism and intolerance in Geneva.

The Iranian-Canadian blogger, Hossein Derakhshan, has been detained since his arrival in Iran in November 2008. He is being investigated on charges of insulting Shiite imams.





REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

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