Iranian Authorities Confirm Roxana Saberi Is an American, Too

Roxana Saberi also has American nationality.

Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejeie [head of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence] confirmed that Roxana Saberi has American nationality, but it is as an Iranian that she has committed a crime.

Roxana Saberi, an Iranian-American journalist, was sentenced to eight years in prison by the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Iran. The conviction stems from charges of committing “espionage for America”.

Iranian judicial authorities had earlier denied that Ms. Saberi was an American national. Therefore, this is the first time that an official in Iran announced that she also has American nationality.

Today, Monday, Intelligence Minister Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejeie told Iranian news agencies at the Conference of the Prosecutors of the Islamic Countries that “Roxana Saberi, who is of Iranian nationality and entered Iran with an Iranian passport, at no time during her detention brought up that she was not Iranian.”

Mr. Ejeie added, “[Saberi] may be of American nationality, too, but now she has been convicted of a crime as an Iranian and prosecuted for a crime in line with current procedures and provisions of the country.”

America and the European Union have dismissed the conviction of this Iranian-American journalist, who has been imprisoned since last February.

Rejecting the charges brought against Ms. Saberi by Iranian authorities, they called for her release as soon as possible. In a letter, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of the Republic of Iran, also asked the prosecutor in Tehran to make sure that “justice” be ensured when reviewing the charges.

In replying to this letter, Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, head of the judiciary, revealed that he had given instructions to the judicial authorities to give the request for appeal against this verdict close consideration.

Roxana Saberi is 31 years old. She has spent six years in Iran providing news and reports to a number of foreign news organizations. Iran claims that her activities as a journalist since 2007 had been illegal.