Iran to release detained US hikers

By IANS,

Tehran : Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said two US men jailed in Iran for illegally entering the country and later charged with espionage will be freed in two days, American TV network NBC reported.


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Three US nationals — Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal and Sarah Shourd — were arrested in Iran July 31, 2009. Shourd was released in September 2010 on a bail of $500,000 on health grounds.

The NBC, which interviewed Ahmadinejad in Iran, said the president confirmed that the two male hikers would be released in two days.

Masoud Shafiee, the lawyer of the detained Americans, said each of his clients would be released on a bail of $500,000, the ISNA news agency reported.

The two men were sentenced to eight years in prison in August.

Bauer, Fattal and Shourd have said they were hiking in the mountains of northern Iraq and crossed into the unmarked border into Iran by mistake.

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