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‘I’m so happy to see my parents’ says American freed from prison in Iran
Ed Harris12 May 2009
The American journalist freed from prison in Iran today said she was very happy to be reunited with her parents and thanked those who helped win her release.
Roxana Saberi, 32, was held in a Tehran prison for four months on charges of spying.
Smiling as she spoke to reporters for the first time since her release yesterday, Miss Saberi said she did not have any plans but wanted to spend time with her family. She looked thin but healthy and was dressed in a bright blue headscarf, black trousers and a black dress.
“I am very happy that I have been released and reunited with my father and mother. I am very grateful to all the people who knew me or didn't know me and helped for my release,” she said outside her home in north Tehran. “I don't have any specific plans for the time being. I want to stay with my parents.“
Her Iranian-born father, Reza Saberi, said the family was making plans to return home to the US but would probably not leave the country until tomorrow.
Washington repeatedly called the espionage charges against Miss Saberi “baseless” and demanded her release, causing difficulty for Barack Obama as he offered to restart a diplomatic dialogue with Iran after decades of the US shunning the country.
Miss Saberi's release cleared one obstacle to closer contacts and could also help hard-line Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad win some domestic political capital a month before he faces an election challenge.
Miss Saberi was released after an appeals court reduced her eight-year prison term to a two-year suspended sentence.
Iranian judiciary spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi said the court ordered the reduction as a gesture of “Islamic mercy” because the journalist co-operated with authorities and had expressed regret.
Miss Saberi has been staying at a friend's house since her release, but returned to her own home today.
She was convicted and sentenced in a secret session by a security court and her father claimed the trial lasted only 15 minutes, during which her lawyer was not given time to defend her.
Her parents, who live in Fargo, North Dakota, flew to Iran to seek her
freedom. Miss Saberi initially held a hunger strike in protest at her imprisonment but ended it after two weeks when her parents, who were visiting her in jail, pleaded with her to stop because her health was failing.
Miss Saberi, who was crowned the 1997 Miss North Dakota, moved to Iran six years ago and worked as a freelance journalist for several organisations, including the BBC.
She was arrested in late January, but it was not until 10 February that she called her father in Fargo and told him she had been detained.
She told him she had been arrested because she had bought a bottle of wine, which is illegal in Iran, from the black market.
