Detained U.S. hikers' Iranian lawyer hopeful of release

A lawyer for two American hikers detained in Iran said Saturday he believes the pair will be released from prison soon, even if Iran finds them guilty of espionage.

Masoud Shafiee, who represents Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer in Tehran, said the two years the two have already spent in Iranian custody is enough.

"I believe that even if the court finds my clients guilty, the two years that they have already served in prison would be considered as their sentence and they would be released," Shafiee told CNN, speaking a day ahead of a scheduled court hearing which coincides with the second anniversary of their capture.

"My clients should not be considered spies, because they lack the characteristics and backgrounds of spies," he said.

Shafiee told the semi-official Islamic Students News Association that he hoped the court would deal with his clients in accordance with Islamic compassion given that their hearing falls on the second anniversary of their arrest and at the start of the holy month of Ramadan.

Fattal and Bauer could be freed within a week of a court order, he said.

Two years ago, the two men, both 29, along with Bauer's fiancee, Sarah Shourd, were hiking in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region along the border. Iranian police arrested the three Americans, saying they illegally entered Iran. They were also charged with spying.

The Tehran Prosecutor's office has "compelling evidence" that the three were cooperating with U.S. intelligence agencies, Iran's state-run Press TV reported.

Shourd was released in September 2010 for medical reasons after 410 days of solitary confinement. She joined family members and supporters who rallied outside Iran's mission at the United Nations Friday and appealed to Iranian authorities to release her friends.

"They deserve it just as much as I did," she said. "And they really have been suffering for so long."

Shourd said the hikers did not know they had crossed the border while hiking. Fattal and Bauer have pleaded not guilty to the charges. Under Iran's Islamic law, spying is punishable by death.

They have spent the last two years in a small cell and been allowed to make only three phone calls to their family, supporters say. Their mothers were allowed to visit them in Tehran for two days in May 2010.

Tehran's chief prosecutor, Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, has maintained that the two men have been treated fairly, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.

Amnesty International said Iran must release the two men.

"The Iranian authorities have held these men for two years, subjecting them to legal proceedings that fall far short of international fair trial standards," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, deputy director of the monitoring group's Middle East and North Africa Program.

"The parody of justice must end here -- by now it seems clear that the Iranian authorities have no legal basis for continuing to hold these U.S. nationals, so they must be released and allowed to leave the country."

Source: CNN