Roxana Saberi, an American journalist jailed for spying in Iran, could be released within hours after her sentence was overturned, her lawyer said today.
An Iranian appeals court has reduced the eight-year jail sentence to a suspended two-year term. She was initially given the lengthy prison term during a secret hearing that sparked a diplomatic incident between Washington and Tehran.
Abdolsamad Khorramshahi, her lawyer, said: “The appeals court ... has reduced her jail sentence from eight years to two years of suspended sentence ... and she will soon be free.”
Ms Saberi, 31, a dual American-Iranian national who had lived in Tehran for the past six years, was found guilty of espionage and told she would be imprisoned in the notorious Evin prison in the Iranian capital.
Her father, Reza Saberi, described the court proceedings last month as a mock trial and said that the entire hearing lasted only a few minutes.
Western diplomats in Tehran and Iranian reformers were sceptical about the case, suggesting that it was politically motivated.
There were suspicions that hardliners in the regime wanted to use the prosecution to end a peace initiative announced by President Obama. Another interpretation was that Iran wanted a bargaining chip to use with the Americans.
President Obama personally intervened on her behalf at the time damaging hopes for a reconciliation bid with the Islamic regime.
He said: “I have complete confidence that she was not engaging in any sort of espionage. She is an Iranian-American who was interested in the country which her family came from, and it is appropriate for her to be treated as such and to be released.”
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