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Iran fixes $500k bail to release US hiker
A senior prosecutor said on Sunday that Iran is ready to release Sarah Shourd, one of three US hikers detained for more than a year and accused of spying, on bail of around $500,000.
A senior prosecutor said on Sunday that Iran is ready to release Sarah Shourd, one of three US hikers detained for more than a year and accused of spying, on bail of around $500,000.
“For the female defendant (Shourd), bail has been set at five billion Iranian rials (around $500,000),” the official IRNA news agency quoted Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi as telling reporters.
“She can be freed by posting the bail... Her lawyer has been informed.”
Shourd was arrested with fellow hikers Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal on July 31, 2009 after straying across the border from neighbouring Iraq.
Dolatabadi said the decision to free Shourd on bail was taken after “the judge confirmed Ms. Shourd’s illness.”
Shourd’s mother Nora told AFP last month that her daughter was being held in solitary confinement despite suffering from a pre-cancerous cervical condition, a lump in her breast and depression.
Iranian authorities have accused the three Americans of illegally entering the Islamic republic and of spying. But they insist they entered the country by mistake after getting lost during a trek in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Dolatabadi said there were “enough reasons to accuse the three of espionage”. “The case is nearly complete and the judge has issued an indictment for the three Americans accused of spying,” he said.
