Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Josh Fattal pictured during a brief release
Posted on 09/11/2010 7:52:10 AM PDT by Cardhu
Plans to free a US woman who has spent a year in an Iranian jail have suddenly been scrapped despite backing from the country's president.
Iran Pulls President's Plan To Free US Woman Share Share Comments (14)11:48am UK, Saturday September 11, 2010
Tom Bonnett, Sky News Online
Plans to free a US woman who has spent a year in an Iranian jail have suddenly been scrapped despite backing from the country's president.
Sarah Shourd has been held in solitary confinement and denied medical treatment
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad requested Sarah Shourd be set free as an act of clemency at the end of the holy month of Ramadan, according to state media.
But with just hours to go judiciary officials blocked the 31-year-old's release.
They demanded she must stand trial before an amnesty could be granted.
Ms Shourd and fellow Americans Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal are accused of illegally crossing the border between Iraq and Iran and spying in July 2009.
Their families say the three were hiking in scenic northern Iraq and if they crossed the border, they did so unwittingly.
Ms Shourd has been held in solitary confinement and according to her mother has been denied treatment for a lump on her breast and precancerous cervical cells.
On several occasions judiciary officials said the Americans trial was due to begin, but few details have been made public including whether they were formally charged.
In May, Iran temporarily released them from Tehran's Evin prison for an emotional reunion with their mothers at a hotel.
President Ahmadinejad and other officials have in the past suggested they could be swapped for Iranians they say are being held in the US.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.sky.com ...
“Their families say the three were hiking in scenic northern Iraq”
HUH??? How about northern California or Alaska??? They were asking for this!
I agree with you....what were they thinking? Well, if they ever get home, maybe they will have learned a lesson.
Why and how were they even hiking in northern Iraq? That would be like 3 idiots deciding to take a hike during WWII in Guam or around Auschwitz.
The consequences are certainly what one would expect. Maybe they will appreciate their homeland a little more.
Oh-oh! Strongly worded letter from 0 or our incompetent state department on the way!
I was waiting for someone to say this decision was because of the threat to burn their book.
I pray they all get released! Do not look like the sharpest knives in the drawer, speaking of the 2 guys.
They probably realized that if they released her she could talk about all the rapes and beatings she has suffered and that would sort of defeat the purpose of granting her clemency.
Best to keep her in jail and maybe arrange an accident before her sentence is finished.
“Surprise!” Mooslimbs LIE.
“Surprise!” Mooslimbs LIE.
Yeah, and the mullahs who run it are even more oppressive and radica than Ahmadinejad!
Hiking on the Iraqi-Iranian border... let me guess, their grandparents went on a bicycle tour of Stalingrad, 1943 and then went water skiing off Normandy in 1944.
I am ashamed at all the blame the victim comments on this thread, especially on this day. I remember when Iran taking hostages was a BFD. We had Iranian Hostage Crisis Day X, for example. It cost a certain ex president his job. But, this media seems determined to not make a big deal of this or do anything that might hurt ‘The Won’.
I understand your "shame" concerning the comments on this thread. Let me tell you though, that this should be a lesson to those too young and too damned foolish to understand the peril they're bring on themselves when they make an excursion into forbidden territory. My only hope is that there will be Divine intervention and that these poor, foolish children will be released and especially the poor young woman who is said to be very ill.
This is a dangerous world that we live in, and even moreso in places like Iraq and Iran. It would do well for all to remember that and resist "devil may care" urges.
Savages. We will have to fight them sooner or later.
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