TEHRAN – Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called on the judiciary to ensure that an Iranian-American journalist jailed for espionage enjoys her legal right to defend herself, the official news agency IRNA said.
Roxana Saberi’s lawyer welcomed Mr Ahmadinejad’s intervention in a letter to Tehran’s prosecutor, published a day after the US-born freelance reporter was sentenced to eight years in jail on charges of spying for the US.
Lawyer Abdolsamad Khorramshahi has said he will appeal the verdict, which comes at a time when the new US administration of Barack Obama is trying to engage the Islamic state diplomatically, after three decades of mutual mistrust.
“I have complete confidence that she was not engaging in any sort of espionage,” Mr Obama said in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, where he was attending the fifth Summit of the Americas.
He said Washington would be in touch with Tehran about the case through Swiss intermediaries.
US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has said releasing Ms Saberi (31) would serve as a goodwill gesture.
– (Reuters)