Peek at secret report led to Saberi arrest

TEHRAN, Iran - A joyful Roxana Saberi yesterday thanked those who helped win her release after four months in a Tehran prison.

Her lawyer revealed that the American journalist was convicted of spying for the United States in part because she had a copy of a confidential Iranian report on the U.S. war in Iraq.

Saberi, 32, who holds American and Iranian citizenship, had copied the report "out of curiosity" while she worked as a freelance translator for a powerful body connected to Iran's ruling clerics, said the lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht.

It turned into a key part of the prosecution's case against her during her secret trial in mid-April before an Iranian security court, Nikbakht said. Prosecutors also cited a trip to Israel that Saberi made in 2006, he said. Iran bars its citizens from visiting Israel, its top regional nemesis.

Speaking to reporters in Tehran for the first time since her release Monday, a smiling Saberi said she just wanted to spend time with her family. Saberi, who at one point was on hunger strike in prison, looked thin but energetic.

"I'm of course very happy to be free and to be with my parents again, and I want to thank all the people all over the world - which I'm just finding out about, really - who whether they knew me or not helped me and my family during this period," she said in brief remarks outside her home in north Tehran.

Saberi's original trial was a single session that her father said lasted 15 minutes. She did not have a chance to speak and was sentenced to eight years in prison - drawing an outcry from Washington.

But she spoke in an appeals court Sunday, explaining her side to the judges, Nikbakht said. Saberi admitted that she copied the document two years ago but said she did not pass it on to the Americans as prosecutors claimed.

She apologized, saying it had been a mistake to take the report, Nikbakht said.

At the time, Saberi was doing occasional translations for the Web site of the Expediency Council, which is made up of clerics who mediate among the legislature, presidency, and Iran's clerical leadership over constitutional disputes, the lawyer said.

Saberi had moved to Iran six years ago and throughout her time there worked as a freelance journalist for several organizations, including NPR and the BBC.

Saberi also told the appeals court that she had engaged in no anti-Iran activities during her visit to Israel, Nikbakht said.

The court accepted her explanation and reduced her sentence to a suspended two-year sentence, prompting her release Monday.

Another of Saberi's lawyers, Abdolsamad Khorramshahi, said a letter from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the court urging it to give Saberi's case a complete review helped bring the sentence reduction.

Her Jan. 31 arrest came at a time when President Obama was reaching out to Tehran, aiming to ease years of tensions between the two adversaries. Many in Iran and the United States speculated that Saberi's arrest was an attempt by hard-liners within the regime to scuttle any dialogue.

But in the face of criticism from Washington, Ahmadinejad and other Iranian officials appeared to back down, issuing assurances Saberi would get a proper appeal process.

Saberi's Iranian-born father, Reza Saberi, told reporters in Tehran that his daughter "was not tortured at all" in custody. He said she initially pleaded guilty to the charges under pressure but retracted her statements later, and the appeals court accepted that.

Saberi's father and her mother, Akiko, who is of Japanese origin, came to Iran after her detention to try to win her release. The family lives in Fargo, N.D.