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Saberi was originally convicted of spying in a brief,
closed-door trial and sentenced to eight years in prison. The
32-year-old dual Iranian-American citizen, who spent four months in
prison, was freed Monday and reunited with her parents after an
appeals court reduced her sentence to a two-year suspended
sentence.

      Ejehi said Saberi was guilty despite her release because the
court had accepted the Intelligence Ministry's view that she had
spied for the U.S.

      "That the verdict against her is a two-year (suspended) jail
term is proof of being guilty," Iranian state television quoted
Ejehi as saying after a Cabinet meeting in Tehran on Wednesday.

      One of Saberi's lawyers, Saleh Nikbakht, revealed Tuesday that
she 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, according to Nikbakht, had copied the report "out of
curiosity" while she worked as a freelance translator for a
powerful body connected to Iran's ruling clerics.

      Nikbakht said Wednesday that Saberi was waiting to get her
Iranian and American passports back from the government in order to
leave the country.

      "Since her passports were seized from her at the time of
detention, we need to get her passports back," he said. "It's a
bureaucratic formality."

      Saberi, who was crowned the 1997 Miss North Dakota, moved to
Iran six years ago and had worked as a freelance journalist for
several organizations, including NPR and the British Broadcasting
Corp. She was arrested in late January.
      

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Crime, Law and Justice

Politics and Government News

Iran's intelligence chief insisted Wednesday
that American journalist Roxana Saberi is guilty of spying for the
U.S. because the appeals court that reduced her prison sentence and
freed her did not acquit her of the original charges.

Iran: American journalist guilty despite freedom

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