An Iranian revolutionary court has sentenced US journalist Roxana Saberi to eight years in jail after she was charged with spying for the United States, her lawyer said on Saturday.
"Ms Saberi has been sentenced to eight years in jail and I am going to appeal," lawyer Abdolsamad Khoramshahi told AFP.
Under Iranian law, the verdict can be appealed within 20 days.
The case against Saberi, a 31-year-old who has US and Iranian nationality, has raised concerns in Washington and among rights groups.
She has been detained in the notorious Evin prison in Tehran since January and went on trial behind closed doors on Monday accused of spying for the United States.
She was initially reported to have been detained for buying alcohol, an illegal act in the Islamic republic.
The court ruling comes despite calls by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for Saberi's release and President Barack Obama's diplomatic overtures to Iran after three decades of ruptured ties.
It is the harshest sentence meted out by an Iranian court to a dual-national on security charges.
Several US-Iranians, including academics, have been detained in recent years on security charges but released after several months behind bars.
US-born Saberi, who is also of Japanese descent, has reported for US-based National Public Radio NPR, the BBC and Fox News, and had lived in Iran for six years.
In March, foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi said Saberi's press card was revoked in 2006 and since then she had been working in Iran "illegally".
Last month, Saberi's parents appealed to Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for her release, saying she was in a "dangerous" mental state.
US State Department spokesman Robert Wood branded the Iranian trial "less than transparent" on Wednesday and repeated his assessment that the charges against her were "baseless".
Wood added the United States was still trying to confirm details of the case via the Swiss embassy in Tehran, which handles US interests in Iran in the absence of diplomatic relations.
A websitehas been set up by her friends and university alumni, and the Committee to Protect Journalists also launched a petition calling for her release.
The website said Saberi was chosen Miss North Dakota in 1997 and was among the top 10 finalists for Miss America the following year.
Clinton said she had delivered a letter to the Iranian delegation at an international conference on Afghanistan in The Hague on March 31, seeking Saberi's release and making appeals on behalf of two other US citizens.
A man works on the rotor head of a windmill at the fair grounds in Hanover, Germany, where preparations are under way for the Hannover Messe fair for industrial technology. AFP/DDP/Nigel Treblin
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