An Iranian Appeals Court has released Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi from prison.  Saberi had been incarcerated in Iran’s Evin prison since January on charges of spying on behalf of the United States.  One of two lawyers defending her announced today that the Appeals Court had overturned Saber’s eight year jail sentence issued previously by a lower court and issued a two year suspended sentence in its stead.

Saberi has lived in Iran since 2003 and worked during that time as a freelance journalist for National Public Radio and the BBC.  She was arrested in January for buying a bottle of wine, which is illegal in Iran, and was subsequently charged with working without a press card and finally spying for the United States. 

Saberi’s case had stuck out as a thorn in the side of efforts to bring Washington and Tehran closer diplomatically since the beginning of the new approach to foreign policy by the Obama Administration.  Her case had even drawn the attention of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who had personally written a letter to the Appeals Court urging fairness on her behalf.

Despite the happy ending to this court struggle, the incident highlights the challenges of the future in dealing with a fractious Iranian government where the Shiite clergy is the real power behind the affairs of state, not the elected government of the often erratic, provocative and controversial Ahmadinejad, who serves as little more than a figurehead.  Add to this division of state powers the competition and ideological differences between the various Grand Ayatollahs who really run things  (and are happy to use the United States and Israel as enemies to prop up their regime) and you start to get an idea of the difficulties involved in dealing with this very complicated nation.

LINKS:

BBC News: Reporter Saberi leaves Iran jail

Bloomberg: U.S.-Iranian Reporter Saberi Released From Tehran’s Evin Prison

Radio Netherlands: Iran frees journalist Saberi