Roxana Saberi stole confidential document on U.S. war in Iraq from Iranian President’s office, trip to Israel was in evidence against her

Saberi Joyful, Grateful to be Out of Iranian Jail American journalist Roxana Saberi said Tuesday she was very happy to be free and thanked those who helped win her release after four months in an Iranian prison, as new details emerged about the evidence presented against her at her spying trial. One of Saberi’s lawyers said she was originally convicted in part because she had visited Israel and because she kept a confidential Iranian government document about the U.S. war in Iraq, which she obtained while working as a freelance Web translator for a powerful body connected to Iran’s ruling clerics. Speaking to reporters in Tehran for the first time since her release Monday, a smiling Saberi said she did not have any specific plans but wanted to spend time with her family. She looked thin but energetic, dressed in a bright blue headscarf, black pants and a black dress. “I am very happy that I have been released and reunited with my father and mother. I am very grateful to all the people who knew me or didn’t know me and helped for my release,” she said in brief remarks outside her home in north Tehran. “I don’t have any specific plans for the time being. I want to stay with my parents. “ Her Iranian-born father Reza Saberi said his daughter “was not tortured at all” while in custody but that she made incriminating statements about herself under pressure. He said his daughter initially pleaded guilty to the charges under pressure but retracted her statements later and the appeals court accepted that. He did not elaborate on the sort of pressure. He told reporters the family was making plans to return home to the United States but probably would not be ready to leave on Tuesday or Wednesday. “She has lost a lot of weight,” he said, adding that now “she is eating well. She is recovering.” The younger Saberi was freed after an appeals court reduced her original eight-year prison sentence to a two-year suspended sentence. The 32-year-old journalist, who has dual Iranian and American citizenship, was convicted of spying for the United States in mid-April in a swift, secret trial before a security court that her father said lasted only 15 minutes. One of Saberi’s lawyers, Saleh Nikbakht, revealed new details of the case on Tuesday. He said Saberi had copied and kept a “confidential document” about the U.S. war in Iraq that was issued by a research center connected to the Iranian president’s office, and that this was used against her in her original conviction. Saberi obtained the document while she was working as a freelance translator for the Expediency Council, a powerful body in Iran’s ruling clerical hierarchy, Nikbakht said. The council’s role is to mediate between the legislature, presidency and ruling clerics over constitutional disputes. The lawyer said Saberi was occasionally working as translator for council’s Web site two years ago. During her trial, prosecutors also cited a trip to Israel that Saberi made in 2006 as evidence against her, the lawyer said. The Iranian government bars its citizens from visiting Israel. In her appeal court session on Sunday, Saberi admitted to the court that she possessed the document. She said she copied it out of “curiosity,” but she said she didn’t share it with American officials, Nikbakht said. She apologized for doing so, and the court reduced the charge against her from espionage to possessing confidential documents. She also acknowledged visiting Israel but said her activities there were not directed against Iran, he said. Her original conviction was also on charges of working with a “hostile country” referring to the United States. But Nikbakht said the appeals court dropped that charge, ruling that the U.S. is not a hostile country because it and Iran are not at war. Washington had called the espionage charges against Saberi “baseless” and repeatedly demanded her release. The case was an irritant in U.S.-Iran relations at a time when President Barack Obama was offering to restart a dialogue with Tehran after decades of shunning the country. But Saberi’s release cleared one obstacle to closer contacts. It could also help hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad win some domestic political points a month before he faces a re-election challenge from reformers who seek to ease Iran’s bitter rivalry with the United States. Saberi, who was crowned the 1997 Miss North Dakota, moved to Iran six years ago and had worked as a freelance journalist for several organizations, including NPR and the British Broadcasting Corp. She was arrested in late January. (AP)

Beirut, 12 May 09, 16:40

Lebanon: 16 thus far arrested in Israeli spy network

Number of Arrests in Israel-Linked Spy Networks Reach 16 The number of arrests in the Israel-linked spy networks has reached 16, a police said Tuesday. The statement said among the detainees was Lebanese policeman Haissam al-Sahmarani who was arrested during a raid on his house in Bourj Barajneh. It said Sahmarani confessed that he and his wife have been working for the Israeli Mossad secret service since 2004. On Sunday, three suspects were arrested in the village of Habboush in south Lebanon “and initial indications show that they were spying for Israel,” a security official said. Two Lebanese men and a Palestinian were arrested on April 25 also on suspicion of spying for Israel and were linked by the authorities to a retired general security officer arrested for spying earlier that month. Former Brig. Gen. Adib al-Aalam was arrested along with his wife Hayat Saloumi and nephew Joseph Al-Aalam and charged in April with espionage — a charge punishable by death in Lebanon. The three are accused of informing Israel about Lebanese and Syrian military and civilian sites “with the aim of facilitating Israeli attacks,” a judicial official said last month. Aalam was arrested at his office near Beirut on April 14 along with his wife. He ran a housekeeping service which he allegedly used as a front to spy for Israel. Marwan Fakih was arrested in south Lebanon in February.

Beirut, 05 May 09, 14:08

U.K. list of personas non gratas includes Palestinian Samir al-Qintar

 

Britain Publishes Persona Non Grata Blacklist Includes Qantar Britain published a blacklist Tuesday of people recently banned from the country including Samir Qantar, who was released by Israel last July in a prisoner swap with Hizbullah. Described as a monster in Israel where he was convicted for killing Danny Haran, his four-year-old daughter Einat and an Israeli policeman in a notorious attack nearly three decades ago, Qantar is considered a hero by many in Lebanon, where he was given a red carpet welcome on his release.He carried out the cross-border raid that landed him in jail in 1979 when he was part of the Palestine Liberation Front. Since his release he has become the popular with Hezbollah and speaks at many of their events. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said she decided to publish the “name and shame” list — which identifies 16 people banned since last October — for the first time to clarify what behavior Britain will not tolerate. “I think it’s important that people understand the sorts of values and sorts of standards that we have here, the fact that it’s a privilege to come and the sort of things that mean you won’t be welcome in this country,” she said. “If you can’t live by the rules that we live by … we should exclude you from this country and, what’s more, now we will make public those people that we have excluded,” she told the GMTV broadcaster. Between October and April the Home Office excluded 22 people for “fostering extremism or hatred” included preachers Abdullah Qadri Al Ahdal and Amir Siddique, said a Home Office statement. Hamas lawmaker Yunis Al-Astal, Jewish extremist Mike Guzovsky, former Ku Klux Klan leader Stephen Donald Black and neo-Nazi Erich Gliebe are also on the list, as is controversial radio host Michael Alan Weiner, also known as Michael Savage. Others blacklisted include homophobic U.S. pastor Fred Waldron Phelps, as well as Artur Ryno and Pavel Skachevsky, former leaders of a violent Russian skinhead gang which committed 20 racially motivated murders. Smith said: “The government opposes extremism in all its forms and I am determined to stop those who want to spread extremism, hatred and violent messages in our communities from coming to our country. “This is the driving force behind tighter rules on exclusions for unacceptable behavior,” she added. Six of those excluded recently were not named because it would not be “in the public interest,” said the Home Office. In February Britain triggered a formal protest from the Netherlands after refusing entry to far-right Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders, maker of a controversial film linking Islam to terrorist attacks.(AFP)

Beirut, 05 May 09, 21:54

Egypt stops Hamas spokesman Ayman Taha from carrying est. $10 million cash into Gaza

Hamas Official Stopped from Carrying $10 M into Gaza Egypt stopped a senior Hamas official from carrying nine million dollars and two million euros into Gaza on Thursday, a security official told AFP. Officials at the Rafah border crossing had held up a six-member delegation returning from truce talks in Cairo after insisting on searching their bags. The officials allowed five members to cross, but prevented Gaza-based Hamas spokesman Ayman Taha, who was carrying the cash, from entering Gaza with the money. After contacting the finance ministry, security officials accompanied Taha to a bank in nearby El-Arish, where he deposited the money in an account before returning to Gaza, the security official said. On Tuesday, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad — whose West Bank-based government is not recognized by Gaza rulers Hamas — urged Israel to allow cash into the besieged enclave of 1.5 million people to ease its liquidity crisis. “We are trying to get cash in but Israeli authorities haven’t authorized it so far,” Fayyad told journalists in the West Bank town of Ramallah. Hamas has said it plans to distribute 4,000 euros (5,200 dollars) to each family whose home was destroyed and 1,000 euros (1,300 dollars) for each family member killed in the onslaught. After winning parliamentary elections in 2006, Hamas officials crossed into Gaza with cash several times. This was the first to be intercepted since Hamas seized Gaza from rivals Fatah 18 months ago, the security official said. In December 2006, Hamas’ then-prime minister Ismail Haniya was forced to leave 35 million dollars at the Egyptian side of Rafah. The money was then transferred to a Palestinian Authority account. On Thursday, Egypt closed the Rafah crossing to all but exceptional cases. “No humanitarian, media or medical delegations will be allowed through, nor will medical aid deliveries be permitted,” a border official told AFP. Egypt has been mediating a lasting truce over the territory that would satisfy Israel’s demand for an end to weapons smuggling and Hamas’s demand for the reopening of Gaza’s borders. Egypt has refused to permanently open the crossing in the absence of EU monitors and representatives of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, the leader of Fatah. Israel, which controls all crossings except Rafah, has since kept the densely populated Gaza closed to all but essential supplies to put pressure on Hamas, which it labels as a terrorist organization. In an interview shown later Thursday with Egyptian television, Taha said Israel had dropped a prior condition that Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit be released before it would end its blockade. Israel has repeatedly said it will end the blockade, imposed after Hamas seized control of Gaza from Fatah in June 2007, when Shalit is released. Taha said Israel had dropped a number of demands since both Hamas and Israel declared ceasefires on January 18 to end the recent 22-day war in Gaza. “Let me say what was proposed in the past and what is proposed now,” Taha said. “It proposed the tying of Shalit with the issue of the passages, now it no longer proposes that.” The war killed at least 1,330 Palestinians and 13 Israelis and destroyed or damaged 14,000 homes, the UN Development Program has said. During the conflict, Egypt allowed aid, medical supplies and some doctors and journalists into Gaza. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Thursday that both he and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton agreed to put “pressure on both sides” to open the crossings into Gaza. “We are really very anxious about the situation of the people in Gaza,” Kouchner told a joint press conference in Washington. Cairo had proposed Thursday as the starting date for a long-term truce, with Hamas saying it would send a delegation back to Cairo on Saturday to give its “final” response to Egypt’s proposal.(AFP)

Beirut, 06 Feb 09, 11:13

Iran seeks joint committee with Lebanon to learn fate of four diplomats missing since 1982

Tehran Wants Joint Committee with Beirut on Its Missing Diplomats Iran on Tuesday asked Lebanon to form a joint committee with Tehran to tackle the cause of its four citizens missing in Lebanon since Israel’s 1982 invasion. “The Islamic republic is calling for the formation an Iranian-Lebanese committee to be created to look into the details and circumstances of this incident,” Iran’s Ambassador Mohammed Reza Shibani told reporters after meeting Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh.The four Iranians — Mohsen Mousavi, Ahmad Motevaselian, Taqi Rastegarmoghaddam — and Kazem Akhavan, went missing at a checkpoint manned by Lebanese Forces militiamen at the northern Barbara region. Iran and Hizbullah say the four were turned over by the Lebanese Forces to Israel and have asked Israel to reveal their fate. Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah recently said Israel has informed the group that the four Iranians had been killed by the Lebanese Forces militia shortly after their abduction. Lebanese Forces Party leader Samir Geagea says the previous LF official in charge of the case, Elie Hobeika, was killed in 2002 and no one has information about the fate of the four Iranians. Nasrallah last week said the Lebanese Government should be responsible about the case. He also said the Lebanese Forces Party has the key to resolve the mystery. “Had they turned them over to Israel, let them say that. And had they killed them, let them deliver their bodies,” Nasrallah told a Press conference.

Beirut, 03 Feb 09, 16:02