TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s leader predicted Tuesday that two Americans arrested while hiking along the Iraq-Iran border and sentenced to eight years in jail on espionage-related charges could be freed “in a couple of days” after a court set bail of $500,000 each.
The events appeared timed to boost the image of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad before his visit to New York next week for the U.N. General Assembly session. Last year, a third American was released on bail around the same time.
In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the United States was “encouraged” by Ahmadinejad’s comments about freeing Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal.
The families of Bauer and Fattal said in a statement that they are “overjoyed” by the reports from Iran.
Lawyer Masoud Shafiei said the court would begin the process to free Bauer and Fattal after payment of the bail, which must be arranged through third parties because of U.S. economic sanctions on Iran.
The timing of the court’s decision is similar to last year’s bail deal mediated by the Persian Gulf state of Oman that freed the third American, Sarah Shourd.
Ahmadinejad, in an interview on NBC’s “Today” show, predicted the Americans could be freed “in a couple of days.” He described the bail offer as a “humanitarian gesture” and repeated complaints about Iranians held in U.S. prisons.
The Americans were arrested in July 2009 along the border and accused of espionage. The trio have denied the charges and say they may have mistakenly crossed into Iran when they stepped off a dirt road while hiking near a waterfall in the semiautonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq.
Last month, Bauer and Fattal, both 29, were sentenced to three years each for illegal entry into Iran and five years each for spying for the United States. They appealed the verdicts. Shourd’s case remains open.
Shourd is now living in Oakland, Calif. Bauer, a freelance journalist, grew up in Onamia, Minn.; and Fattal, an environmental activist, is from suburban Philadelphia. Bauer proposed marriage to Shourd while in prison.
Learn more. Read previous coverage of the hikers’ ordeal.
