Americans Freed by Iran Are Reunited With Families in Oman
September 22, 2011, 7:38 AM EDTBy Ladane Nasseri
(Updates with ministry comment in seventh, eighth paragraphs, academic’s comments in ninth.)
Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Two U.S. nationals held in Iran on charges of espionage and illegal entry were released from prison and arrived in Oman, where they were met by family members who had worked for their release for more than two years.
Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, both 29, left Evin prison yesterday and were handed over to the Swiss Embassy in Tehran. The Swiss mission represents the interests of the U.S., which doesn’t have diplomatic ties with Iran.
“We’re so happy we’re free,” Fattal, dressed in a blue shirt, told reporters at the Muscat airport in coverage by Iranian state television.
The Americans were released after an Iranian judge signed documents approving the payment of $500,000 each on their behalf, according to Massoud Shafiei, their lawyer, who said in a phone interview yesterday that Oman had arranged for the money to be paid. Bauer and Fattal had said that they were hiking in Iraq in July 2009 and mistakenly wandered across the border.
The U.S. repeatedly called for an end to their detention, which added to tensions with Iran and highlighted friction among Iran’s ruling elite amid contradictory statements on their case by the judiciary and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The men’s release was announced yesterday by Iranian state media shortly before Ahmadinejad arrived in New York for the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.
Obama’s Thanks
U.S. President Barack Obama, in a statement, welcomed Bauer and Fattal’s release and thanked Omani leader Sultan Qaboos bin Said al-Said, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, the Swiss government and others who worked on their behalf.
“All Americans join their families and friends in celebrating their long-awaited return home,” Obama said.
Today, the Iranian Foreign Ministry renewed its requests for the U.S. to also show goodwill by determining the fate of Iranians detained in U.S. jails.
“It is necessary to remember the difficult and inhuman conditions in which tens of Iranians are kept in U.S. jails or in other countries upon the request of the U.S.,” the ministry said in a statement on state television’s website.
At least 10 Iranians are held in the U.S. after being convicted of violating trade sanctions, said William Beeman, a professor and chairman of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota who has researched the detentions. They are “being held largely incognito,” Beeman wrote in an e-mail two days ago. “When defense lawyers try to locate them, they are moved.”
Oman’s Help
Oman also acted as a facilitator last year by organizing payment for the release of Sarah Shourd, a U.S. citizen who was with Bauer and Fattal when they entered Iran and was also arrested. Shourd, who became engaged to Bauer while they were in jail, was released in September 2010 on $500,000 bail. She left for the U.S. immediately via Oman and didn’t return to Iran to stand trial. The men were sentenced by the Revolutionary Court on Aug. 21 to eight years in prison.
Shourd joined Bauer’s parents and sisters and Fattal’s parents and brother in Muscat, Oman’s capital. “We have waited for nearly 26 months for this moment and the joy and relief at Shane and Josh’s long-awaited freedom knows no bounds,” the families said in a statement.
High-Level Meetings
Retired U.S. Ambassador William G. Miller was among the individuals and groups who worked to arrange high-level meetings that led to the Americans’ release through Search for Common Ground, a Washington-based organization that focuses on conflict resolution.
The timing of Bauer’s and Fattal’s release “may very well have something to do with the timing of Ahmadinejad’s presence in New York,” said Miller, who served in Iran for five years and was ambassador to the Ukraine.
“This is a signal from the Iranians that they’re interested in talking,” Miller said in a telephone interview. After 32 years of mutual isolation, he said, the Iranian move is important.
“It’s a good gesture and compassionate gesture,” he said.
Search for Common Ground said its efforts “culminated in last week’s trip to Iran by Bishop John Bryson Chane of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington and Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, archbishop emeritus of Washington” who met with senior officials, including an hour-long meeting with Ahmadinejad, according to an account on the group’s website.
The organization said it has worked toward improved U.S.- Iranian relations since 1996.
Internal Conflicts
The release process was complicated by internal conflicts between the Iranian president and other political bodies.
Ahmadinejad told NBC News in an interview broadcast on Sept. 13 that he was arranging for Fattal and Bauer to be released “in a couple of days” on humanitarian grounds. The following day, Iran’s judiciary said that their release wasn’t “imminent” and that legitimate information on the matter would only come from the judiciary.
Prior to their detention, Shourd and Bauer had lived together in Syria’s capital, Damascus, where she learned Arabic and taught English, according to freethehikers.org, a website set up to help gain their freedom. Fattal is an environmentalist who was visiting Damascus before the three headed to Iraq, according to the website.
Bauer is a Minnesota native, Fattal is from Pennsylvania and Shourd is from California.
In 2007, Iran sparked a crisis when it seized 15 U.K. sailors and marines it accused of trespassing in Iranian waters and held them for two weeks. Two years earlier, Iran jailed a Frenchman and a German citizen who had strayed into Iranian waters during a fishing trip. Sentenced to 18 months in jail, they were freed after being granted clemency by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
--With assistance from Nicole Gaouette in New York and Terry Atlas in Washington. Editors: Heather Langan, Alan Crawford.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ladane Nasseri in Tehran at lnasseri@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net.
