Iran Sentences U.S. Journalist to 8 Years

TEHRAN — Iran has sentenced an Iranian-American journalist, Roxana Saberi, to eight years in prison after convicting her of spying for the United States, her lawyer said Saturday.

The State Department has called the charges against Ms. Saberi, 31, baseless and has asked for her release.

On Saturday, a White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said President Obama was “deeply disappointed” by the sentencing. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton issued a statement saying, “We will continue to vigorously raise our concerns to the Iranian government.”

The sentencing could complicate political maneuvering between Iranian and American leaders over Iran’s nuclear program, an issue that kept relations icy during much of the Bush administration. Mr. Obama recently made overtures to Tehran about starting a dialogue over the nuclear program, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran responded positively.

When asked how the case might affect relations with Iran, Mr. Gibbs said, “What we think is important is that the situation be remedied.”

Ms. Saberi’s sentencing sets the case apart from other recent detentions of people with dual citizenship. Two Iranian-American scholars, Haleh Esfandiari and Kian Tajbakhsh, were arrested in 2007 and accused of trying to overthrow the government, but they were released on bail before their trials began.

The verdict came after an unusually swift trial, which started last Monday and was conducted behind closed doors.

Ms. Saberi’s lawyer, Abdolsamad Khoramshahi, told the official Iranian news agency, IRNA, that he had been told he could appeal the case, and said he would.

It is difficult to judge how politics may have affected the case.

Abbas Milani, director of Iranian studies at Stanford University, said Ms. Saberi’s trial and sentence might reflect an attempt by hard-line elements in Iran to poison any efforts to draw closer with the new United States administration.

“The radical wing, opposed to the idea of rapprochement with the U.S., and influential in the judiciary, is using the case to make such a change in U.S.-Iran relations more difficult,” Mr. Milani said. “It is part of a pattern. Every time the two countries come close to the moment of truth, radicals manufacture a crisis that renders negotiations more difficult.”

The other possibility, he said, is that Tehran is trying to increase its leverage heading into any eventual negotiations with Washington.

Saeed Leylaz, a political analyst in Iran, said he believed that his country wanted to use Ms. Saberi in negotiations with the United States, but would not keep her for long because it would tarnish its human rights record.

Iran has also been pressing for the release of three Iranian officials whom the United States took into custody in 2007 in Iraq. The men, who Iran says are diplomats, were arrested at Iran’s consulate in northern Iraq. United States forces have said the men had links to the Revolutionary Guards.

Some diplomats have suggested that another American who many believe is being held in Iran, Robert Levinson, a former F.B.I. agent, may be viewed as a high-value chip in a possible prisoner swap. Mr. Levinson traveled to Iran in 2007 on what his family said was a business trip and has been missing since then.

Ms. Saberi was arrested in January on the charge of buying alcohol. The Foreign Ministry said later that she was accused of working as a reporter without press credentials, but the prosecutor’s office said this month that she was put on trial for spying. She is being held in Evin Prison in Tehran.

She grew up in Fargo, N.D., and has lived in Iran for six years. She has worked for National Public Radio and the BBC. Iranian authorities revoked her press card in 2006.

In a statement released Saturday, Vivian Schiller, the president and chief executive of NPR, said, “We are deeply distressed by this harsh and unwarranted sentence.”

In an interview with NPR, Ms. Saberi’s father, Reza Saberi, who was in Iran but not allowed into the courtroom, said his daughter was coerced into making incriminating statements. “They told her if she made the statements they would free her,” according to a transcript on the NPR Web site. “It was a trick.”

He also said that his daughter wanted to go on a hunger strike, but he added that she was weak and that he feared it would be dangerous to her health.

Both Democratic senators from North Dakota, which is where Ms. Saberi’s parents live, expressed outrage over the sentencing, A.F.P. reported.

“This is a shocking miscarriage of justice,” Senator Byron Dorgan said in a statement. “The Iranian government has held a secret trial, will not make public any evidence, and sentenced an American citizen to eight years in prison for a crime she didn’t commit.

“I call on the Iranian government to show compassion,” Senator Dorgan said, adding that he would continue to work with the Saberi family, State Department officials and the international community to gain her release.

“I will not rest until Roxana is given her freedom and arrives home,” he said.

The other senator, Kent Conrad, described her sentence as “preposterous” and a “travesty of justice,” adding that Iran “is doing enormous damage to their credibility on the world stage with behavior like this.”