An update on this story. It now appears Iran may attempt to arrange a swap for Iranians in U.S. custody. "Iran: Court to commute sentences for 2 Americans," by Ali Akbar Dareini for the Associated Press, September 17:
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran's foreign minister said Saturday that the courts are willing in "the near future" to commute the prison sentences for two Americans convicted of spying. The Americans' lawyer, meanwhile, was in court trying to arrange a $1 million bail-for-freedom deal.
The release rests in the hands of the hard-line judiciary, and Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi gave no clear timetable. He also raised the issue of Iranians held in U.S. prisons, suggesting the Americans' release might be drawn out to bring attention to inmates Iran wants freed.
In a case that has added to the acrimony and deep distrust between Iran and the U.S., Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, both 29, were detained along the Iran-Iraq border in July 2009 with their friend Sarah Shourd. Shourd was released last September with mediation by the Gulf nation of Oman after $500,000 was paid.
The two men were convicted of illegally entering Iran and spying for the United States, and were sentenced to a total of eight years in prison each.
They denied the charges and appealed the verdicts, opening the way for the possible deal to free them in exchange for $500,000 bail each.
Salehi said at a news conference that Iran's judiciary was ready to commute the sentences as a gesture of Islamic mercy. But he did not give any clearer indication of when they could be released.
"The judiciary's decision is to commute (the Americans') punishment," the foreign minister said. "We expect the judiciary to make its decision in the near future."
"We hope this issue will be finalized so that both families of Iranians who are waiting (for inmates in U.S. prisons) as well as the families of these U.S. nationals will, God willing, hear good news," Salehi said.
He did not specifically mention any Iranian detainee, although officials in Tehran have often complained about alleged mistreatment of Iranians in American custody....
Why do we indulge this Terrorist State blackmailing us, because it is nothing less than that? Is it because it's an islamic terror dictatorship? Isn't there anybody left in authority in the US who could do something about this? Obama, it seems, would rather be on the other side...
Is deliberate sadism sanctioned in the Quran? It is one thing to murder all your enemies in a brutal fashion; it is another to keep them alive and taunt them. Is this what Allah teaches, O Muslims?
Dinner Jacket is just loving dangling us American Infidels on a string. I mean c'mon - that's exactly what it is.
The Iranian government makes me sick t my stomach! What a bunch of thugs. Adding kidnapping to their list of inhumaties only makes one disdain the whole order of nutcases running that country. They are slick, though, as they are and have been the Crazed Islamic Supremists who have funded, organized and deployed terrorist groups that have for years influenced nations with their rampage to Islamitize the world.
The president of Iran is insane and Iran will soon have the bomb. This scenero is frightening! With the weakest administation ever the US stands silent. It will take an emboldened Isreal to make the move, because Iran will use the bomb to make the end of days, in the Islamic ideology, an event. The handwriting is on the wall.
"..mistreatment of Iranians in American custody...." !!!
Rape of prisoners; sanctioned in Islam, rewarded by Allah. (ayatollah Yazdi).
http://crossmuslims.blogspot.com/2010/04/rape-and-torture-viol-et-torture.html
...a gesture of Islamic mercy.
The biggest and most horrible joke on the planet!
Kidnapping and holding to ransom.
Extortion.
Deliberate humiliation of the prisoners (American citizens) and of their country (America) which has been, of late, projecting weakness.
*Because* America has projected weakness, the Mohammedans are taunting, boasting, and playing nasty little cat-and-mouse games.
All Mohammedan countries, considered as human gestalts, should be treated, by other countries, as if they were mafia dons - mafia dons who are slightly mad and into S & M.
I wonder what would happen if all Iranian Muslim entry into Western non-Muslim countries, and all investment in Iran by Western non-Muslim countries, were suddenly to be put a stop to: ALL of it. NO Muslims from Iran permitted to travel or study in the West. NO Muslims from Iran permitted to do business in the West. And definitely NO Iranian Muslims permitted to immigrate to the West.
I wonder what would happen if all those western countries who still have embassies in Iran were to shut them down and leave; and all Iranian embassies in the West, told to pack up and leave.
Diminish their capacity to bribe, and infiltrate, and threaten (and to keep tabs on, and threaten or attack, those from their country who, being in the West, have actually seen the light and defected from Islam - regular poster Kepha knows of Persian-speaking churches that are composed of apostates from Islam).
And of course, what needs to happen, like, yesterday, is for the USA - and Russia and China would help, if they had any sense at all, which unfortunately at the moment they don't, for they just don't seem to grasp that Iranian nukes are intended for Beijing and Moscow as well as for Jerusalem and all the capitals of the West - to simply obliterate all of Iran's nuke sites and certain other crucial installations. No warning, no explanations, and no apologies.
Just do it. Let 'em contemplate a series of enormous smoking holes in the ground, and get an idea of the reality of Infidel firepower.
The only thing a sadistic psychopathic bully, kidnapper and extortionist understands is a great big stick brought down really hard and precisely on his head.
In a case that has added to the acrimony and deep distrust between Iran and the U.S., Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, both 29, were detained along the Iran-Iraq border in July 2009 with their friend Sarah Shourd...
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Well, isn't the Associated Press being even-hand3ed here—I wonder why having our civilians kidnapped, imprisoned, and falsely convicted might add to our distrust of the brutal Mullahs? sarc/off
More:
The two men were convicted of illegally entering Iran and spying for the United States, and were sentenced to a total of eight years in prison each.
They denied the charges and appealed the verdicts, opening the way for the possible deal to free them in exchange for $500,000 bail each.
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$1.5 million is not "bail"—it is *ransom*.