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A joyful Roxana Saberi on Tuesday 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 U.S. in part because she had a copy of
a confidential Iranian report on the U.S. war in Iraq.


      Saberi, 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, closed-door 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 did not have any specific
plans but wanted to spend time with her family. 


Saberi, who at one
point was on hunger strike in prison, looked thin but energetic,
dressed in a bright blue headscarf, black pants and a black dress.


      "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.


      "I don't have any specific plans for the moment, I just want to
be with my parents, and my friends and to relax," the 32-year-old
said.


      Her father said Saberi was catching up on news stories on her
detention on the Web as the family prepared to return with her to
the United States in the coming days.


      Saberi's original trial was a swift, single session that her
father said lasted only 15 minutes. She didn't have a chance to
speak in that trial, and she 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 didn't pass it on to the
Americans as prosecutors claimed. She apologized, saying it had
been a mistake to take the report, Nikbakht said.


 He gave no
details on what was in the document because it remains
confidential.


      At the time, Saberi was doing occasional translations for the
Web site of the Expediency Council, which is made up of clerics who
mediate between 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 was working as a freelance journalist for several
organizations, including NPR and the British Broadcasting Corp.

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


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


      Ahmadinejad's letter and the success of the appeal was a sign of
the intense political pressure swirling around Saberi's case. 


Her
Jan. 31 arrest came at a time when President Barack Obama was
launching his outreach to Tehran, aiming to ease years of tensions
between the two adversaries. 


Many in Iran and the U.S. 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. 


The release could also help
Ahmadinejad win some domestic political points a month before he
faces a re-election challenge from reformers who seek to ease
Iran's bitter rivalry with the United States.


      Saberi's Iranian-born father Reza Saberi told reporters at the
Tehran home that his daughter "was not tortured at all" while in
custody, but that she made incriminating statements about herself
under pressure. 

He said his daughter initially pleaded guilty to
the charges under pressure but retracted her statements later and
the appeals court accepted that.


      He told NPR that there was "a lot of psychological pressure ...
just to be there, for her to be confined in one room and not to be
able to do any of the activities that she used to do, it was so
hard for her."


      He said the first thing his daughter wanted when she got home
after her release was "to rest a little bit and to speak to some
of her friends here."


      "She has lost a lot of weight," he told reporters. The younger
Saberi held a hunger strike during her detention, stopping after
two weeks when her parents, visiting her in prison, asked her to
end it. 

Now "she is eating well. She is recovering," her father
said.


      Saberi's father and her mother Akiko, who is of Japanese origin,
came to Iran after her detention to try to win her release. Reza
Saberi said the family was making plans to return home to the
United States, but probably would not be ready to leave on Tuesday
or Wednesday. 


The family lives in Fargo, North Dakota, where Roxana
was raised and in 1997 was crowned Miss North Dakota.
     

Gallery

US journalist freed by Iran, reunites with parents

Iran hints Roxana Saberi's sentence may be eased

Saberi caught up in Iranian politics

Saberi sentenced to eight years

Iran charges American journalist with espionage

Journalist, a Fargo native, arrested in Iran

Politics and Government News

A joyful Roxana Saberi on Tuesday thanked
those who helped win her release after four months in a Tehran prison.

Saberi joyful, grateful to be out of Iranian jail

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