Saberi. Finally free
Photo: Reuters
Report: Journalist jailed in Iran visited Israel
Unconfirmed Iranian report says Roxana Saberi admitted to visiting Israel in 2006, but not to spying
Roxana Saberi, the American-Iranian journalist imprisoned in Tehran, admitted during her trial that she had visited Israel in 2006, her attorney told Iran's Press TV Wednesday. The report has not been confirmed by any other sources.
Attorney Saleh Nikbakht added that Saberi did not engage in any anti-Iranian activity during the visit. She was released from prison on Tuesday.
Release
Associated Press
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Iran forbids its citizens to visit Israel, and are wary of all citizens whose passports have been stamped by Israeli authorities.
Iranian Intelligence Minister Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie explained that from his professional point of view Saberi was effectively a spy.
He said the Intelligence Ministry was "investigating these issues professionally and will inform the legal system of its opinion, which it may or may not accept".
Saberi, who is both a US and Iranian citizen, was arrested in January following a six-year stay in Iran. Preliminary reports said she had been detained for illegally operating as a journalist but later she was accused of spying for the US, a charge that carries the death sentence in the Islamic Republic.
She was found guilty in a closed-door trial and sentenced to eight years in prison, but the US and rights organizations protested and demanded her release. An additional hearing was held and on Monday the court announced she would be released.
Her attorney said the charges had been reduced to copying forbidden material, explaining that Saberi had received secret information on the American invasion of Iraq while working for a religious Iranian agency affiliated with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He says she was charged with espionage due to a copy she made of the document.
