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Iran's president intervened in American's release

Jazzy

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TEHRAN, Iran – Iran's president intervened to secure the release of Sarah Shourd, one of three Americans jailed for more than 13 months, in part because of her gender, a news agency reported Friday.



Iranian officials have announced that on Saturday they will free Shourd, although they have said nothing about the fate of her two colleagues — Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal.



The three Americans were arrested along the Iran-Iraq border in July 2009, and Iran has accused them of illegally crossing the border and spying. Their families say they were hiking in Iraq's scenic north and that if they crossed the border, they did so unwittingly.



On Friday, Iran's Mehr news agency quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast as saying President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad intervened to secure Shourd's release in part because of the special viewpoint of the Islamic Republic of Iran on the dignity of women.



Mehmanparast said freeing Shourd was an act of clemency for Eid al-Fitr, the feast that marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan — — an established practice in the Muslim world.



Reporters also received a text message from the Culture Ministry telling reporters to come to a ceremonial palace used by Iran's presidency Saturday morning to witness Shourd's release. The ceremony was previously planned for a hotel near Evin Prison in north Tehran.



The 31-year-old Shourd has been held in solitary confinement, and her mother says she's been denied treatment for serious health problems.



Nora Shourd has said her daughter told her in a telephone call in August that prison officials have denied her requests for medical treatment. The mother said they talked about her daughter's medical problems, including a breast lump and precancerous cervical cells, and her solitary confinement.



Shourd's release could be a calculated move by Iran to soften international criticism of its judiciary. Iran has faced a growing storm of protest over a stoning sentence for a woman convicted of adultery that has been temporarily suspended.



There was no word on the fate Bauer, 28, who got engaged to Shourd while in prison, or Fattal, 28.



The imprisonment of the Americans has deepened tensions between the U.S. and Iran, a relationship already strained over Washington's suspicions that Tehran is trying to manufacture nuclear weapons — something Iran denies.



Iranian leaders have repeatedly suggested a link between their jailing and that of a number of Iranians by the United States whose release Tehran demands.





Link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/iran_us_hikers
 
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