Freed US-Iranian reporter Roxana Saberi thanked US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in person on Wednesday for pressing Iran to release her from a Tehran jail where she was held on charges of spying.
With her parents and Clinton at her side, Saberi said efforts by the top US diplomat and others sustained her during her incarceration at Tehran’s Evin prison until she was released on May 11.
“When I found out that I had the support while I was in prison, I gained a lot of strength and hope. I did not feel so alone any more,” Saberi told reporters at the US State Department.
Saberi’s case added to strains in US-Iranian relations at a time when the administration of US President Barack Obama was seeking to reach out to Tehran after more than three decades of mistrust. So far, those efforts have not born fruit.
In March, Clinton’s staff broke with usual diplomatic isolation of Iran at a conference in The Hague and directly passed on a letter to Tehran’s delegation, urging Saberi’s freedom on humanitarian grounds.
The two countries, at loggerheads on a range of issues, do not have direct diplomatic ties and most dealings are done via Swiss intermediaries who represent US interests.
“This was a matter of great concern to our country and certainly to the Obama administration and to me personally. Not only as secretary of state but as a mother,” Clinton said.
The US-born journalist, who had worked for NPR and the BBC, was released after an Iranian appeal court cut her eight-year jail sentence for spying to a suspended two-year term. She had been held in prison for three months.
Saberi, a citizen of both the US and Iran, was arrested in January for working in the Islamic Republic after her press credentials had expired.
She was later accused of spying for the US, a charge that can carry the death sentence. The US called the spying charges baseless.
Saberi declined reporters’ questions over the spying charges or whether she was planning on writing a book about her experiences in jail, where she went on a hunger strike.
Saberi did hail her heritage. Her mother is Japanese and her father of Iranian descent
“I am very proud to be an American. Just as I am proud of my Japanese and Iranian heritage,” she said.
Seated in the same office where Clinton and Saberi met was Robert Barnett, a prominent Washington lawyer and literary agent who has represented both the top US diplomat and her husband former former US president Bill Clinton in their respective book deals.
DISASTER: The Bangladesh Meteorological Department recorded a magnitude 5.7 and tremors reached as far as Kolkata, India, more than 300km away from the epicenter A powerful earthquake struck Bangladesh yesterday outside the crowded capital, Dhaka, killing at least five people and injuring about a hundred, the government said. The magnitude 5.5 quake struck at 10:38am near Narsingdi, Bangladesh, about 33km from Dhaka, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said. The earthquake sparked fear and chaos with many in the Muslim-majority nation of 170 million people at home on their day off. AFP reporters in Dhaka said they saw people weeping in the streets while others appeared shocked. Bangladesh Interim Leader Muhammad Yunus expressed his “deep shock and sorrow over the news of casualties in various districts.” At least five people,
ON THE LAM: The Brazilian Supreme Court said that the former president tried to burn his ankle monitor off as part of an attempt to orchestrate his escape from Brazil Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro — under house arrest while he appeals a conviction for a foiled coup attempt — was taken into custody on Saturday after the Brazilian Supreme Court deemed him a high flight risk. The court said the far-right firebrand — who was sentenced to 27 years in prison over a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 elections — had attempted to disable his ankle monitor to flee. Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes said Bolsonaro’s detention was a preventive measure as final appeals play out. In a video made
It is one of the world’s most famous unsolved codes whose answer could sell for a fortune — but two US friends say they have already found the secret hidden by Kryptos. The S-shaped copper sculpture has baffled cryptography enthusiasts since its 1990 installation on the grounds of the CIA headquarters in Virginia, with three of its four messages deciphered so far. Yet K4, the final passage, has kept codebreakers scratching their heads. Sculptor Jim Sanborn, 80, has been so overwhelmed by guesses that he started charging US$50 for each response. Sanborn in August announced he would auction the 97-character solution to K4
SHOW OF FORCE: The US has held nine multilateral drills near Guam in the past four months, which Australia said was important to deter coercion in the region Five Chinese research vessels, including ships used for space and missile tracking and underwater mapping, were active in the northwest Pacific last month, as the US stepped up military exercises, data compiled by a Guam-based group shows. Rapid militarization in the northern Pacific gets insufficient attention, the Pacific Center for Island Security said, adding that it makes island populations a potential target in any great-power conflict. “If you look at the number of US and bilateral and multilateral exercises, there is a lot of activity,” Leland Bettis, the director of the group that seeks to flag regional security risks, said in an
RSS