[Al Arabiya Latest] Iran charged on Monday three detained American citizens with espionage, the official IRNA news agency quoted a judiciary official as saying, while U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said there was "no evidence" for Tehran to charge its citizens.
The three were held after they strayed into Iran from northern Iraq at the end of July.
"We believe strongly that there is no evidence to support any charge whatsoever," Clinton said on a visit to Berlin on Monday.
The three, Shane Bauer, 27, Sarah Shourd, 31, and Josh Fattal, 27, crossed into Iran from Iraq and their families say they strayed across the border accidentally.
"The three are charged with espionage. Investigations continue into the three detained Americans in Iran," Tehran general prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi told IRNA.
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 U.S. troops in Iraq.
According to Iranian law espionage is punishable by death.
Posted by Fred 2009-11-10 00:00||
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File under: Govt of Iran
#1 The hikers knew the risks. The Iranians are hoping to get something for this that is worth way more than three idiots' lives. Once again, people who don't get it threaten to put the whole process at risk, possibly sowing misery for years to come. And then they get to write a book about it.
Posted by gorb 2009-11-10 00:26||
2009-11-10 00:26||
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IIRC, he's fluent in dialectal arabic, and a full resident of syria (gone native? See his articles tone, you can see to which side he's more inclined to, plus, if sarah is his squeeze, he must be at least nominally a convert), he's done investigative journalism stints in iraq, darfour,...
So it's not like he's an innocent, wide-eyed "kid" caught hiking cluelessly, more likely, a seasoned journalist, who got snabbed while trying to sneak over there, knowing fully what he was doing.
Posted by anonymous5089 2009-11-10 04:02||
2009-11-10 04:02||
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#3 Hikers? That's a cover story if I ever heard one. They got sent in and then betrayed most likely. Only need to find if they were handed over by traitors or by electronic eavesdropping.
Posted by gromky 2009-11-10 10:04||
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2009-11-10 10:04||
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#4 Sent in? By the CSM?
Posted by gorb 2009-11-10 10:45||
2009-11-10 10:45||
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#5 Is there really any need for those to be sent by someone? Bauer is a freelance journalist & photograph, most likely, he was on a story about iranian kurds and/or rebels or something like that, which would be somehow ironical if he's used as a pawn by iran, since his sympathies seem to lay more against the USA in the first place.
Posted by anonymous5089 2009-11-10 11:13||
2009-11-10 11:13||
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#6 More like they should be charged with aggravated stupidity, but I'm not sure that's covered by the Iranian criminal code.
Posted by Cornsilk Blondie 2009-11-10 12:37||
2009-11-10 12:37||
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#7 There's only one reason any American should go anywhere near Iran and that's to bomb the crap out of it.
Posted by Woozle Uneter9007 2009-11-10 12:45||
2009-11-10 12:45||
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