Tehran/Washington - Iran released Iranian-US scholar Haleh Esfandiari on bail Tuesday, her lawyer's office said. The Tehran office of Shirin Ebadi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who represents Esfandiari, confirmed the release but could not say when her case would be closed so that she could return to the United States.
An unnamed judiciary spokesman told Iran's Fars news agency that the judiciary approved bail at 300,000 dollars.
Esfandiari works for the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars and has been jailed since May on alleged espionage charges. She arrived in Iran in December to visit her mother and was first detained and prevented from leaving the country again in January.
The fate of the another Iranian-US detainee, Kian Tajbakhsh of the George Soros Open Society Institute, is still unclear but ISNA news agency predicted that he would soon be released on bail as well.
Iran last month broadcast remarks from the two detainees, which Tehran portrayed as confessions to the espionage charges. The two said in interviews with state television IRIB that US think tanks aimed to weaken the Iranian regime and the Islamic world.
In addition to Esfandiari and Tajbakhsh, peace activist and board member at the University of California Ali Shakeri has also been charged with espionage.
A fourth detainee, Parinaz Azima, a correspondent for a Persian- language radio station owned by Radio Free Europe funded by the United States, has not been jailed but cannot leave the country.
Tehran has accused Washington of putting political, cultural and economic pressure on Iran through think-tank operations and supporting Iranian opposition groups to topple the Islamic regime through what it calls a "velvet revolution."
The Wilson Centre last week, on the 100-day mark of Esfandiari's imprisonment, again called for her to be released unconditionally.
"Our plea to the Iranian government remains simple: Let Haleh go. She has done nothing wrong," said spokeswoman Sharon McCarter. "We ask for Haleh's safe return to her family immediately, as well as the release and safe return of all of the detained Iranian-Americans."
