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According to breaking news, an Iranian official said Tuesday that the trial of a jailed American journalist who has been accused of spying for the United States had started and would last about three weeks.
The trial of Roxana Saberi, a 31-year-old dual American-Iranian citizen, started Monday and a verdict will be issued within three weeks, according to a report carried by the official Iranian press agency I.R.N.A., which quoted the country’s judiciary spokesman, Ali-Reza Jamshidi. Ms. Saberi presented her final defense on Monday, The Associated Press quoted Mr. Jamshidi as saying.
Ms. Saberi was arrested in January and initially accused of working without press credentials. But an Iranian judge brought far more serious charges against her last week, accusing her of spying for Washington. No further details of the charges were mentioned in the dispatch.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has said that the United States is “deeply concerned” about the espionage charges and has asked Iranian diplomats for help in obtaining Ms. Saberi’s immediate release.
“This charge is baseless and it’s without foundation,” Robert Wood, a State Department spokesman, said last week.
In response, Mr. Jamshidi said Tuesday that the U.S. intervention in the case was “ridiculous and against international laws,” according to the I.R.N.A. report. He said outside countries should not intervene in domestic judicial cases without examining the evidence.
The trial comes at a sensitive moment in relations between Iran and the United States. President Barack Obama has expressed a willingness to talk with Tehran after years of strained relations under the former Bush administration.
Ms. Saberi grew up in Fargo, North Dakota, and went to Iran six years ago. She has worked for the B.B.C. and National Public Radio. Her press credentials were revoked three years ago, according to an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hassan Qashqavi.
Ms. Saberi’s lawyer, Abdolsamad Khorramshahi, said he was not authorized to speak to the media about the trial, which he was permitted to attend. “I will comment only after the verdict is issued,” he told The Associated Press.
Ms. Saberi’s parents traveled to Iran from the United States to support her. She is being held in Evin prison near Tehran.
In a separate case, an Iranian appeals court upheld a three-year prison sentence for Silva Harotonian, an Iranian woman of Armenian descent who had worked for a U.S. organization, Mr. Jamshidi said.
Ms. Harotonian had worked in Iran for the Washington-based International Research & Exchanges Board, a nonprofit education organization. She was arrested in June and sentenced in January for “crimes against security.”
Washington has also called on Iran to release Ms. Harotonian, who is reportedly in poor and deteriorating health.
The statement from I.R.N.A. made no mention of Esha Momeni, a graduate student at California State University, Northridge, who was arrested in October, accused of a traffic violation.
She was freed on Nov. 10 after spending almost four weeks in a Tehran prison but has been banned from leaving the country while new charges against her are being investigated. Ms. Momeni was conducting research on the Iranian women’s movement.
