A Good Day: Saberi Freed

Good news and long overdue!

TEHRAN -- Roxana Saberi, a 32-year-old Iranian-American journalist detained here for more than three months, was freed on Monday after an appeals court suspended her eight-year sentence on espionage charges.

The court upheld the spying charges against Ms. Saberi, but reduced the sentence to a two-year suspended prison term, according to her lawyer, Abdolsamad Khorramshahi. Ms. Saberi is banned from working as a journalist in Iran for five years, but is permitted to leave the country, he added.

Ms. Saberi's arrest had become a thorny issue between U.S. and Iran. The two nations have no diplomatic ties, but have engaged in talks to improve relations and have held high-level meetings on Afghanistan. According to Mr. Khorramshahi, the judges explicitly stated in their verdict that Ms. Saberi could be released because "there was no animosity between Iran and the United States."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she was "heartened" by Ms. Saberi's release but that the U.S. continued "to take issue with the charges against her and the verdicts rendered."