Roxana Saberi Appeals Iranian Espionage Conviction

Iranian Nobel laureate to defend U.S. journalist CNN — An Iranian human-rights activist and Nobel laureate has joined the legal team of an Iranian-American journalist convicted of spying and jailed in Iran. Shirin Ebadi, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, took up the case of Roxana Saberi at the request of Saberi's family, her father, Reza Saberi, told CNN Wednesday. Ebadi heads the Center for Defenders of Human Rights in Iran. click to read complete article

Iran president won't intervene in journalist case Reuters UK — Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday he would not intervene in the case of imprisoned Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi, ABC television reported. Asked in an interview if he would release Saberi as goodwill gesture, Ahmadinejad said through a translator, "I am not a judge. And I do not pass judgment over judicial cases. And in Iran, the judiciary is independent. click to read complete article

Iran Official Orders ‘Fair’ Appeal Review for Reporter NY Times — The chief of Iran’s judiciary said Monday that he had ordered a “careful, quick and fair” consideration of an appeal of the conviction of and eight-year prison sentence imposed on an Iranian-American journalist, one day after the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, urged the chief prosecutor to re-examine the case. The judiciary chief, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, issued a decree to the head of the Tehran court calling on the appeal to be “considered at the appeals stage in a careful, quick and fair way,” the ISNA news service reported. click to read complete article