Iran accused three detained Americans of spying on Monday, signaling Tehran intends to put them on trial. It drew a sharp US response that the charges are baseless because the hikers strayed across the border from Iraq.
The announcement comes as Washington and Tehran are deadlocked in negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, raising concern that the three could be used as bargaining chips in the talks or to seek the return of Iranians they say are missing.
Relatives and the US government say the three were innocent tourists on an adventure hike in northern Iraq and accidentally crossed into Iran where they were arrested on July 31.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused the US of jailing innocent Iranians and pointed to two of his countrymen — a nuclear scientist and a top defense official — who disappeared in recent years. Tehran accuses the US of kidnapping them. The US has refused comment on the two, and there has been speculation they defected to the West.
Ahmadinejad, asked about the spying accusations against the Americans, told reporters in Istanbul, Turkey, said he had no opinion about the case.
“It must be judged by the judiciary, whether they are spies or not,” he said. “There are some Iranians who have spent many years in prison without doing anything wrong, in American prisons.”
He said the Americans had crossed the border illegally and Iran has a right to punish them.
“In all countries, crossing borders would have a very heavy sentence, according to the law,” Ahmadinejad said.
“Hopefully, they will have an appropriate answer in the court, and hopefully they will convince the judge that they did not have any intention of crossing the border illegally,” he said.
The Americans — Shane Bauer, 27, Sarah Shourd, 31, and Josh Fattal, 27 — have been held in Iran’s Evin prison, where Swiss diplomats have visited them twice and said they are healthy.
The three had been trekking in Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region, their relatives say.
The case recalled that of an American-Iranian journalist, Roxanna Saberi, who was arrested in Iran in January and convicted of espionage.
After heavy pressure from the US, she was freed on appeal in May and returned home — and several months later, the US military released five Iranians it had held for more than two years.
The accusations against the three Americans could be a first step in a similar move by Iran to put them on trial and convict them, then arrange their release, aiming to get concessions.
Monday’s announcement by Tehran’s top prosecutor was the first official word from Iran of espionage allegations against the three.
Until now, Iranian officials have only spoken about the Americans in broad terms, saying even after months of questioning that they were still trying to determine why they had entered Iran.
Hoping to prove that they were simply vacationing, the families released videos taken by a friend just two days before their detention, showing the three backpackers dancing and joking in an unfinished cinder block building they came across in Kurdistan’s mountains.
Bauer and Shourd had been living in Damascus — he studying Arabic, she teaching English — and both had done freelance journalism or writing online. Friends described them as passionate adventurers interested in the Middle East and human rights.
Fattal, who spent three years with a group dedicated to sustainable farming near Cottage Grove, Oregon, had been overseas since January as a teaching assistant with the International Honors Program.
The hikers’ families declined interview requests, but issued a statement saying “the allegations that our loved ones may have been engaged in espionage is untrue.”
Tehran chief prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi said the three “have been accused of espionage” and that investigations were continuing, according to the state news agency IRNA.
It was not clear from his comments whether formal charges had been filed against the Americans, since the word in Farsi he used could mean either “accused” or “charged.”
But it was a signal that Iranian authorities intend to prosecute them — and on far stiffer charges than simply accidentally crossing the border.
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