Tehran to release US-Iranian scholar on bail

TEHRAN: Iran is to release US-Iranian academic Haleh Esfandiari, detained in Tehran since May on security charges, as soon as a bail payment has been made, a judiciary source said on Tuesday.   

"Her arrest has been changed to bail. Probably she will be released tonight. We are waiting for the deposit of the bail," said the source in the Iranian judiciary.   

The official declined to comment on the case of Kian Tajbakhsh, a US-Iranian urban planning expert who has been held in jail on the same charges as Esfandiari since May.   

The semi-official Fars news agency also quoted judiciary sources as saying that Esfandiari's status had been changed to bail and her release was imminent.   

The arrests increased tensions between Tehran and Washington at a time of growing concerns about the Iranian nuclear programme, which the United States claims is aimed at making an atomic weapon.   

The bail decision comes just over a week after Tehran's deputy prosecutor Hassan Hadad said that the investigation into Esfandiari and Tajbakhsh has been concluded.   

He added that the pair now had to carry out "written work" before a decision could be taken about their fate, without giving further details.   

Esfandiari, 67, is a prominent academic who heads the Middle East programme at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.   

Both Esfandiari and Tajbakhsh had been accused by the authorities of using their academic contacts to promote an alleged US government drive to topple Iran's Islamic authorities with a "soft revolution".   

Esfandiari had returned to Iran last year to visit her sick 93-year-old mother.   

According to the Wilson Center, she was travelling in a taxi on December 30 to the airport for the flight homewards when three masked men with knives stopped the car and took her handbag and passports.   

She was not detained at that time, but over the next few months was interrogated on several occasions. She was then arrested and taken to Tehran's Evin prison on May 7.   

Iranian television last month broadcast a controversial documentary showing footage of Esfandiari and Tajbakhsh apparently implicating themselves in the alleged US efforts to topple Iran's clerical rulers.   

In the programme, Esfandiari said she had been involved in work whose ultimate aim was to damage Iran's Islamic authorities, describing the interview as an "opportunity" to set the record straight.   

The judiciary source also made no mention of a fourth US-Iranian, Parnaz Azima, a broadcaster with Radio Free Europe's Prague-based Persian language arm Radio Farda, who faces similar security-related charges.   

Azima is not being detained but her passport has been confiscated and she is unable to leave Iran.   

Another US-Iranian, Ali Shakeri, a California-based businessman who is also a board member of a private conflict-resolution group, is also believed to have been detained since May but on different charges.   

Iran, which does not recognise dual nationality, has repeatedly rejected US calls for their release, bluntly telling Washington that their detention is none of its business.