Tehran/Washington -Iran released Iranian-US scholar Haleh Esfandiari on bail Tuesday and allowed her to leave Evin prison where she was being held in northern Tehran. "I am happy about this unexpected move and grateful to all those who enabled this and made me going home again," she told state television before being picked up by family members.
The Tehran office of Shirin Ebadi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who represents Esfandiari, had earlier Tuesday confirmed the release but could not say when her case would be closed so that she could return to the United States.
A spokesman of the Evin prison confirmed an earlier report by 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 detained repeatedly and prevented from leaving the country since January.
The US State Department would not confirm Esfandiari's bail, but said the United States was working towards the release of all four US citizens being held in Iran.
"The important thing for us is that all of the Americans will have the opportunity to be released first and then to come home and to be reunited with their families," spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said. "That's what we are working toward. We are hoping we'll be able to get to that point."
The fate of 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.
A legal expert in Tehran said that the espionage charges against Esfandiari have probably been dropped as otherwise, despite the rather high bail, she would not have been released. But, he added, she could still be found guilty for her alleged confessions on state television.
Esfandiari said in the interview that she helped create "a chain of networks consisting of foundations, research and academic centres for eventually forcing quite fundamental changes within the (Iranian) regime and weaken the system."
The Wilson Centre at the time derided the confessions as "scripted, contrived, and completely without merit."
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."
