A lawyer for US-born reporter Roxana Saberi, freed this week from a Tehran jail, has said that spy charges she had faced arose after she obtained a classified report on the US war on Iraq.Saberi's father Reza Saberi told reporters in Tehran that his daughter "was not tortured at all" in her custody. He said she initially pleaded guilty to the charges under pressure but retracted her statements later, and the appeals court accepted that.She had a report about the US attack on Iraq prepared by the strategic research centre at the (Iranian) presidency," Saleh Nikbakht said, adding, "The research centre deemed the report as classified. But she had not used it at all.
Nikbakht did not say how Saberi had managed to gain access to the confidential report. At the time, Saberi was doing occasional translations for the Web site of the Expediency Council, which is made up of clerics who mediate among the legislature, presidency, and Iran's clerical leadership over constitutional disputes. Saberi's other lawyer said the journalist received a suspended 2-year jail term from the appeal court as that is the stipulated punishment for such a crime.Saberi was released on Monday after her original 8-year jail term was reduced to a suspended 2-year term by the appeal court. Iran's judiciary has said Saberi's 2-year sentence would be suspended for five years.Saberi's said that I'm of course very happy to be free and to be with my parents again, and I want to thank all the people all over the world - which I'm just finding out about, really - who whether they knew me or not helped me and my family during this period.
Nikbakht did not say how Saberi had managed to gain access to the confidential report. At the time, Saberi was doing occasional translations for the Web site of the Expediency Council, which is made up of clerics who mediate among the legislature, presidency, and Iran's clerical leadership over constitutional disputes. Saberi's other lawyer said the journalist received a suspended 2-year jail term from the appeal court as that is the stipulated punishment for such a crime.Saberi was released on Monday after her original 8-year jail term was reduced to a suspended 2-year term by the appeal court. Iran's judiciary has said Saberi's 2-year sentence would be suspended for five years.Saberi's said that I'm of course very happy to be free and to be with my parents again, and I want to thank all the people all over the world - which I'm just finding out about, really - who whether they knew me or not helped me and my family during this period.
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