Iranian court frees journalist charged with spying for US

US journalist Roxanna Saberi has been freed from Iran's notorious Evin Prison. Photo / AP

She was arrested for buying a bottle of wine. Then for four months the former beauty queen endured the punishment of a convicted spy, locked up and facing the nightmare of a long stretch inside Evin Prison, the notorious jail where Iran incarcerates enemies of the 1979 revolution.

Yesterday, almost as abruptly and bizarrely as her ordeal began, Roxana Saberi won back her freedom.

The 32-year-old reporter, whose image, head wrapped in a scarf, became the symbol of US-Iranian tensions, emerged a free woman after an appeal court reduced her eight-year prison term on charges of spying for America, to a two-year suspended sentence.

The happy ending for Ms Saberi, who was told she was free to leave Iran, removes an obstacle to President Barack Obama's efforts to pursue rapprochement with Iran.

A statement from the White House said Mr Obama welcomed Iranis 'humanitarian gesture' although continued to insist that she had been wrongly accused.

The decision was interpreted more widely as a gesture of encouragement by Iran towards Mr Obama and his recent diplomatic overtures. It was also taken as a sign that the Iranian regime's hardliners had been overruled, at least on the immediate issue of Ms Saberi's fate, if not on whether to normalise relations with Washington.

Hopes that Ms Saberi would be freed had risen at the weekend after her defence lawyers said her legal appeal, heard on Sunday, ran to three hours, three times longer than her secretive original conviction last month.

Iranis revolutionary court had convicted her during that behind-closed-doors hearing of 'collaborating with a hostile state'.

Yet, even the jailed woman's Iranian-born father Reza Saberi, and her Japanese-born mother, Akiko, who had travelled from the US to campaign for her freedom, appeared surprised at the sudden release.

Outside the prison gates, Mr Saberi spoke emotionally of what his daughter - who went on hunger strike for two weeks - had been put through.

He said the couple would take her back to the US as soon as they had said farewell to friends and relatives in Tehran.

"We were expecting her release," a smiling Mr Saberi said, "but not so soon."

In the US, family and friends wept with happiness. "There are tears of joy, it's an overwhelming announcement," said Marianna Malm, her old English teacher in North Dakota.

In the midst of the celebrations, however, the question was also being asked at what political level of Iran's complex hierarchy the decision to free her had been taken.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad intervened in the case when he hinted that leniency would be shown, without explicitly telling the Iranian judiciary how to handle the appeal.

But some analysts believe that the order to free her is more likely to have come from Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who may have been anxious to stop the case from derailing a possible thaw with the US.

Initially arrested for attempting to purchase alcohol which is illegal in Iran, Ms Saberi was later accused of working as a journalist without official accreditation.

When she went on trial last month, the charges had escalated to espionage. Although she was not actually cleared of spying, but merely granted Islamic 'mercy' because she expressed regret for her actions, Iran can now claim some credit internationally over its handling of her appeal.

The campaign group Human Rights Watch said the decision to free her on appeal showed that Iran was capable of upholding international standards of due process when it wished to. "But, her experience reflects the treatment of many Iranians who find themselves in custody for no good reason," it said.

Amnesty International also said justice had been served, but noted her release should have been unconditional.

Ms Saberi holds dual Iranian and US citizenship. She grew up in Fargo, earning a Miss North Dakota crown in 1997, but moved to Iran six years ago.

Last month, in an unexpected twist in her story, the award-winning Iranian film director Bahman Ghobadi came forward to claim that he was Ms Saberi's fiance and that she was a victim of 'political games' in Iran.

- THE INDEPENDENT