Iran accuses 3 detained Americans of espionage

Tehran: Iran accused three detained Americans of spying, signaling Tehran intends to put them on trial. It drew a sharp US response that the charges are baseless because the hikers strayed across the border from Iraq.

The announcement comes as Washington and Tehran are deadlocked in negotiations over Iran's nuclear program, raising concern that the three could be used as bargaining chips in the talks or to seek the return of Iranians they say are missing.

Relatives and the US government say the three were innocent tourists on an adventure hike in northern Iraq and accidentally crossed into Iran where they were arrested on July 31.

The mother of one of three US hikers said on Tuesday her son would "fall on the floor laughing" at the suggestion he is a spy.

Cindy Hickey of Minnesota said that the hikers' families only want to keep stressing the innocence of their loved ones.

Hickey's son, 27-year-old Shane Bauer, was taken into custody near the Iraqi border in late July along with Sarah Shourd, 31, and Josh Fattal, 27.

"There's no question in my mind that this is just a very false accusation," Hickey said. "These are peaceful people. This accusation is entirely at odds with the people that Shane, Sarah and Josh are."

Commenting on the case, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused the US of jailing innocent Iranians and pointed to two of his countrymen - a nuclear scientist and a top defense official - who disappeared in recent years.

Tehran accuses the US of kidnapping them. The US has refused comment on the two, and there has been speculation they defected to the West.

Ahmadinejad, asked about the spying accusations against the Americans, told reporters in Istanbul, Turkey, said he had no opinion about the case.

"It must be judged by the judiciary, whether they are spies or not," he said. "There are some Iranians who have spent many years in prison without doing anything wrong, in American prisons."

He said the Americans had crossed the border illegally and Iran has a right to punish them.

"In all countries, crossing borders would have a very heavy sentence, according to the law," he said. "Hopefully, they will have an appropriate answer in the court, and hopefully they will convince the judge that they did not have any intention of crossing the border illegally."

The Americans - Shane Bauer, 27, Sarah Shourd, 31, and Josh Fattal, 27 - have been held in Iran's Evin prison, where Swiss diplomats have visited them twice and said they are healthy.

The three graduates of the University of California at Berkeley had been trekking in Iraq's northern Kurdistan region, their relatives say.

The accusations against the three Americans could be a first step in a similar move by Iran to put them on trial and convict them, then arrange their release, aiming to get concessions.

Monday's announcement by Tehran's top prosecutor was the first official word from Iran of espionage allegations against the three.

Until now, Iranian officials have only spoken about the Americans in broad terms, saying even after months of questioning that they were still trying to determine why they had entered Iran.

Hoping to prove that they were simply vacationing, the families released videos taken by a friend just two days before their detention, showing the three backpackers dancing and joking in an unfinished cinder block building they came across in Kurdistan's mountains. In one video, Fattal performed an impromptu rap about Iraq.

Bauer and Shourd had been living in Damascus - he studying Arabic, she teaching English - and both had done freelance journalism or writing online. Friends described them as passionate adventurers interested in the Middle East and human rights.

Fattal, who spent three years with a group dedicated to sustainable farming near Cottage Grove, Ore., had been overseas since January as a teaching assistant with the International Honors Program.

The White House has called for their release, and US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the spying accusations were baseless.

"We believe strongly that there is no evidence to support any charge whatsoever," she said in Berlin. "And we would renew our request ... that the Iranian government exercise compassion and release them, so they can return home."

Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, whose country holds the rotating European Union presidency, warned Iran against using "the lives of very young people for political purposes."

Tehran chief prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi said the three "have been accused of espionage" and that investigations were continuing, according to the state news agency IRNA. "An opinion (on their case) will be given in the not-distant future," he said.

He gave no further details on the spying allegations.