Iran: "All Jews jailed in Iran for spying for Israel freed"

Iranmania ^ | April 24 2003 | AFP

[knighthawk]

TEHRAN, April 24 (AFP) - All the Iranian Jews convicted amid widepread controversy in July 2000 of spying for Israel have been freed from prison, Iran's foreign minister announced Thursday.

"Those among our Jewish compatriotes who were in prison in Shiraz are now free," Kharrazi said during a press conference with visiting French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin.

"We hope that in the future we will not see such reprehensible activities that lead to imprisonments," he added.

Thirteen Iranian Jews and eight Muslims were arrested in the southern city of Shiraz in 1999, accused of working as a spy-ring for Iran's arch enemy Israel.

In July 2000, a closed-door hardline revolutionary court sentenced 10 of the Jews and two of the Muslims to jail terms of between four and 13 years.

In September 2000, an appeals court reduced their sentences and two of the 12 were freed as they had served out their terms. Three more were released last October under a pardon from supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, leaving the fate of the last five Jews uncertain.

Iran has a 30,000-strong Jewish population, the Middle East's largest outside Israel. Most of the community lives in Shiraz, Tehran and Isfahan.

Israel, which Iran refuses to recognise, denied that the men were spying for the Jewish state.

[knighthawk]

Ping

[katnip]

Alive?

[Southack]

Translation: We want to make it very unpopular among most of the planet's political class - for Israel to bomb our now functioning nuclear reactors...

[facedown]

They're not running scared. Really.

[dinok]

How nice of them...

Think that 250,000 infidel Great Satan troops had anything to do with the decision?

[SpyGuy]

Hmmm...what interesting timing.

[Jewels1091]

No, I think it was those big tanks they were driving and those big bombs they were dropping.....

[Riley]

In July 2000, a closed-door hardline revolutionary court sentenced 10 of the Jews and two of the Muslims to jail terms of between four and 13 years.

This whole deal smells funny. That's an awfully light sentence in Iran for somebody that they genuinely believe was spying for Israel. I wonder what the accused really did, if anything.

[Riley]

Translation: We want to make it very unpopular among most of the planet's political class - for Israel to bomb our now functioning nuclear reactors...

Probably spot-on.

[elbucko]

Somebody e-mail this to Jonathan Pollard.

[blam]

The 4th ID is right on the Iraq/Iran border, I read last night. They're looking for radical Shia's crossing over from Iran.

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

[TopQuark]

Iran's arch enemy Israel.

So, what did Israel do to Iran?

You'd think that after more than 500,000 dead in the war with Iraq, it is Iraq that would be viwed as enemy.

I guess, anti-Semticism takes precendence.

[Slings and Arrows]

I wonder what the accused really did, if anything.

They were Jews who had the misfortune to be living in Iran. That was crime eniugh.

[carbon14]

"Well...when extremist Iranians get the wacky Iraqi treatment, they become as tame as Bonzo"

[dighton]

That's an awfully light sentence in Iran for somebody that they genuinely believe was spying for Israel. I wonder what the accused really did, if anything.

At the Novosibrisk Transit Prison in 1945 they greeted the prisoners with a roll call based on cases. “So and so! Article 58-1a, twenty-five years!” The chief of the convoy guard was curious: “What did you get it for?” “For nothing at all.” “You’re lying. The sentence for nothing at all is ten years.”

-- The Gulag Archipelago.

[madison10]

Most likely the only thing they ever did to be imprisoned was call themselves "Jews."

[sheik yerbouty]

They must be shi'iting green...

[DBtoo]

Israel and Iran hate each other; there is no love lost on either side.