Ahmadinejad says US hikers will be freed in two days

Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal are to be released, Iranian president says in interview with a US television network Two American men sentenced in Iran last month to eight years in prison on spying charges will be freed in two days, the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has told a US television network. Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal were arrested in July 2009 near Iran’s border with Iraq, where they say they were hiking in the mountains. A third American, Sarah Shourd, was freed in September 2010 and has returned home. The US network NBC, which interviewed Ahmadinejad in Iran, said that the Iranian president had told it Bauer and Fattal would be released in two days. The interview was due to air later on Tuesday on NBC’s Today show. Bauer, Fattal and Shourd say they were hiking in the mountains of northern Iraq and, if they crossed the unmarked border into Iran, it was by mistake. Shourd was freed on $500,000 (£315,000) bail. Bauer and Fattal were convicted at a trial held behind closed doors and share a cell in Tehran’s Evin prison. Their supporters say evidence against them has never been made public, and that the sentence came as a shock after hopes for their release had been boosted by positive comments from Iran’s foreign minister. The US president, Barack Obama, has denied that the Americans, who were working in the Middle East when they decided to hike in the scenic mountains of Iraq, are linked to US intelligence. The affair has heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington, which severed diplomatic ties after the storming of the US embassy in the wake of the 1979 Islamic revolution. Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Middle East United States NBC guardian.co.uk

Posted by on September 13, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.