Iran to free U.S. hiker on bail
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Tehran Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi announced Sunday that Iran's judiciary is ready to release one of the three U.S. hikers, Sarah Shourd, on bail due to her health problems.
Dolatabadi said that the country is ready to release one of the detained U.S. hikers on bail of 500,000 U.S. dollars.
Sarah Shourd's detention sentence has turned into a 500,000- dollar bail, Dolatabadi told a press conference, adding the detention sentence of the other two hikers has been extended.
The cases of the three Americans have been sent to the court, and "an indictment has been issued for the three U.S. nationals," the semi-official ISNA news agency quoted Dolatabadi as saying.
The three Americans, Sarah Shourd, Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer, were arrested in Iran on July 31 last year after they illegally entered the country from its western borders.
The Sunday announcement of Iran's judiciary came after the mixed news on release of Shourd over the past three days.
Iran said Thursday that it would free U.S. female hiker Sarah Shourd on Saturday morning, but it later abruptly halted her release, saying "judicial proceedings in the defendant's case have not been completed."
On Sunday, the Iranian lawyer of the three detained U.S. nationals in Iran Masoud Shafiei said that Iran is waiting for the "required steps" of the Swiss embassy in Tehran to release the detained U.S. woman hiker.
"I have informed my client's (Sarah Shourd) family and the Swiss embassy of the amount of the bail set by the (Iranian) Revolution Court, so that they can take required steps," Shafiei was quoted as saying by ISNA.
The Swiss embassy in Tehran represents U.S. interests in Iran after the two countries broke direct diplomatic relations in 1980.
