国际英语新闻：Iran to free woman U.S. hiker on bail

TEHRAN, Sept. 12 (Xinhua) -- Tehran Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi announced Sunday that Iran's judiciary is ready to release one of the three U.S. hikers, Sarah Shourd, on bail due to her health problems.

Dolatabadi said that the country is ready to release one of the detained U.S. hikers on bail of 500,000 U.S. dollars.

Sarah Shourd's detention sentence has turned into a 500,000- dollar bail, Dolatabadi told a press conference, adding the detention sentence of the other two hikers has been extended.

The cases of the three Americans have been sent to the court, and "an indictment has been issued for the three U.S. nationals," the semi-official ISNA news agency quoted Dolatabadi as saying.

The three Americans, Sarah Shourd, Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer, were arrested in Iran on July 31 last year after they illegally entered the country from its western borders.

The Sunday announcement of Iran's judiciary came after the mixed news on release of Shourd over the past three days.

Iran said Thursday that it would free U.S. female hiker Sarah Shourd on Saturday morning, but it later abruptly halted her release, saying "judicial proceedings in the defendant's case have not been completed."

On Sunday, the Iranian lawyer of the three detained U.S. nationals in Iran Masoud Shafiei said that Iran is waiting for the "required steps" of the Swiss embassy in Tehran to release the detained U.S. woman hiker.

"I have informed my client's (Sarah Shourd) family and the Swiss embassy of the amount of the bail set by the (Iranian) Revolution Court, so that they can take required steps," Shafiei was quoted as saying by ISNA.

The Swiss embassy in Tehran represents U.S. interests in Iran after the two countries broke direct diplomatic relations in 1980.

"I have met the three clients and Sarah Shourd is likely to be released (within the following days)," Shafiei told ISNA.

Also, Dolatabadi said Sunday that the release of one of the U.S. hikers has nothing to do with the case of Iranian scientist Shahram Amiri.

"We do not make any link between the two issues, Iranian judiciary fulfills its missions and only focuses on judicial issues," said Dolatabadi according to ISNA.

In June, the 32-year-old Iranian scholar Shahram Amiri, who once worked at Iran's Malek Ashtar University and was missing on a pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia last year, arrived at Tehran's Imam Khomeini airport from the United States.

Media reports said that the scholar was released by the U.S. to exchange for the three American hikers, which was rejected by Iran.

Iran charged the three Americans with espionage last November, but the U.S. government considered the allegations totally unfounded and insisted that they should be freed.

In May, mothers of the three Americans were allowed by the Iranian government to meet their children in Tehran.