TEHRAN — The start of the trial of three Americans charged with spying on Iran has been postponed because one of them has not been summoned to return to the country to appear in court, Iran’s judiciary spokesman said Monday.
Sarah Shourd was freed on bail in September after nearly 14 months in a Tehran prison and returned to the United States. Her fiance, Shane Bauer, and their friend Josh Fattal remain in prison. Their trial was expected to begin Saturday.
The three Americans were reportedly hiking in July 2009 in northern Iraq’s Kurdistan region near the Iranian border, when Iranian forces took them into custody and accused them of intentionally crossing over.
The initial accusation of illegal border crossing was later raised to espionage charges. The U.S. government says the three are innocent.
In announcing the postponement, spokesman Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehi said Shourd hasn’t been legally summoned yet.
“Under this circumstances, the freed person (Shourd) needs to be summoned so that all three can stand trial,” Ejehi was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.
Earlier, Iran warned that it would seize the $500,000 bail posted by Shourd if she does not return for trial.
Shourd, who has not disclosed any plans to return to Iran, said in an interview published Sunday in The New York Times that the three stepped off an unmarked dirt road and inadvertently crossed from Iraq only because a border guard of unknown nationality gestured for them to approach.
The families of the detained men on Monday released a statement saying they “continue to pray that Iran will release them on humanitarian grounds.”
In a separate case, Ejehi told IRNA that two Germans arrested in Iran in October while reportedly trying to interview the son of a woman sentenced to death by stoning have asked the Iranian authorities for a pardon.
