Detained scholar freed from Iran jail

TEHRAN — A detained Iranian-American academic accused of conspiring against the government was freed on bail today from the Tehran prison where she had been held since early May, a top judiciary official said.

Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, has been jailed largely incommunicado at Tehran’s Evin prison on charges of acting against national security.

Mohammad Shadabi, an official at the Tehran prosecutor’s office, said she was freed on $333,000 bail. Mr. Shadabi said he could not say whether Mrs. Esfandiari would be allowed to leave Iran.

Earlier, Mrs. Esfandiari’s husband said her mother used the deed to her Tehran apartment to post bail.

“I feel extremely good. It has been a very anxious several months. Now we hope she will not only be released from prison but allowed to come back home,” the husband, Shaul Bakhash, said from his home in Potomac.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said he had seen reports of the release of Mrs. Esfandiari, who was among four Iranian Americans detained in Iran, but could not confirm them.

“Our position has always been that Esfandiari as well as the other three have done nothing wrong, should not have been in the situation they found themselves in and should be free right now,” he said.

Mrs. Esfandiari’s troubles in Iran began when three masked men holding knives threatened to kill her on Dec. 30 as she was on her way to the Tehran airport after visiting her 93-year-old mother, the Wilson Center said. They took her baggage, including her U.S. and Iranian passports, the center said.

For several weeks, she was interrogated by authorities for up to eight hours a day, according to the center. Most of the questioning focused on the activities of the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center.

Iran confirmed in mid-May that it was detaining Mrs. Esfandiari and charged her later that month. The only contact her family has had with her since her arrest has been in short phone calls to her mother from prison.

Earlier this month, Iranian authorities said they have concluded investigations into Mrs. Esfandiari and Kian Tajbakhsh, another detained Iranian American also accused of conspiring against the country’s security.

Two other Iranian Americans also face security-related charges: Parnaz Azima, a journalist for U.S.-funded Radio Farda, and Ali Shakeri, a founding board member of the Center for Citizen Peacebuilding at the University of California at Irvine. Mr. Shakeri is in prison; Miss Azima is free but barred from leaving Iran.

There was no news today on any developments concerning the other three Iranian Americans.