Iran Accuses 3 American Hikers of Espionage

Iran Accuses 3 American Hikers of Espionage
By JACK HEALY and NAZILA FATHI
Copyright by The Associated Press
Published: November 9, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/world/middleeast/10hikers.html?ref=global-home


Three American hikers who were arrested in Iran this summer after straying across its border with Iraq have been accused of spying, an Iranian state news agency reported on Monday.

The Tehran prosecutor told Iran’s official IRNA news agency that Iranian officials were pursuing espionage charges against the Americans, who were detained in late July after trekking through the Kurdistan region of Iraq and toward the Iranian border. News of the spying accusations drew a quick rebuke from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who reiterated calls for the Iranians to release the hikers, Shane M. Bauer of Emeryville, Calif.; Joshua F. Fattal of Cottage Grove, Ore.; and Sarah E. Shourd of Oakland, Calif.

“We believe strongly that there is no evidence to support any charge whatsoever,” she told reporters in Berlin, according to The Associated Press. “And we would renew our request on behalf of these three young people and their families that the Iranian government exercise compassion and release them so they can return home.”

It was unclear whether Iran had formally filed legal action against the hikers, or whether prosecutors were merely leveling accusations for public consumption. The Persian word used by the chief prosecutor who discussed the case can mean either “charged” or “accused” in English.

Nevertheless, the specter of three American tourists on trial in Iran could add more strain to relations between Iran the United States at a time when the countries are engaged in fraught negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, and it raises questions about whether Iran will try to use the captured Americans as a bargaining chip in those talks. Earlier this year, the case of Roxana Saberi, an Iranian-American journalist arrested in Tehran, drew international attention and sparked accusations that the Iranian government was trying to use one woman’s arrest to gain leverage with the United States.

Ms. Saberi, a freelance journalist who had lived in Iran since 2003, was arrested in January and sentenced to eight years prison on charges of espionage and working without press credentials. But the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, wrote a letter urging an appeals court to be fair as it reviewed her case, and she was released in May, a month before Iran’s disputed presidential elections.

The United States has been pursuing the release of the American hikers through Swiss diplomats who represent American interests in Tehran. The United States severed diplomatic ties with Iran after the 1979 takeover of its embassy in Tehran.

There was no immediate comment from family members or friends of the Americans.

Statements from family members and Kurdish authorities have said that the three travelers, all graduates of the University of California, Berkeley, had crossed from Turkey into Kurdistan, where they stayed at a hostel and camped as they headed toward Ahmed Awa, a resort area of caves and waterfalls on the border.

A statement on a Web site set up for the hikers, freethehikers.org, makes a plea for their release: “We hope the Iranian authorities understand that if our children and friends did happen to enter Iran, there can only be one reason: because they made a regrettable mistake and got lost.”

Jack Healy reported from New York, and Nazila Fathi from Toronto.