President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's prediction that pair could be freed in days is not authoritative, suggest court officials

Iran's powerful judiciary has said that a bail offer for two Americans convicted of spying is still under review, in a potentially embarrassing rejection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's prediction that their release could come in a matter of days.

 

The statement by the hardline judiciary appears to be a message that only its officials can set the timetables and conditions on any possible release and not the president, who is locked in a bitter power struggle with Iran's ruling clerics, who control the courts.

 

It also could be a swipe at Ahmadinejad's hopes of timing the release of Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal to fit with his expected arrival in New York next week for the UN general assembly.

 

On Tuesday, defence lawyer Masoud Shafiei said that the court handling the case had set bail of $500,000 (£320,000) each for the Americans, who were detained in July 2009 while hiking along the Iran-Iraq border.

 

A third American, Sarah Shourd, was released last year on the same bail but only after similar mixed messages from Ahmadinejad and the judiciary over the timing.

 

In the end, Shourd left Iran on a private jet to the Gulf state of Oman just as Ahmadinejad was heading for New York.

 

The judiciary statement suggests that the bail plan for Bauer and Fattal still needs to be approved by the higher ranks of Iran's legal system, which include members of the theocracy's inner circle.

 

"Two American citizens charged with espionage have not been released. Request from lawyers of these two defendants to issue bail and free [them] is under study," the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency quoted the statement as saying.

 

"Information about this case will be provided by the judiciary. Any information supplied by individuals about this is not authoritative," the statement added in a clear jab at Ahmadinejad.

 

Bauer and Fattal, both 29, were sentenced last month to three years jail each for illegal entry into Iran and five years each for spying for the US.

 

They have denied the charges and appealed against the verdicts. Shourd's case remains open.

 

The Americans say they may have mistakenly crossed into Iran when they stepped off a dirt road while hiking near a waterfall in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq.

 

The US government has appealed for the men to be released, insisting that they have done nothing wrong.

 

The two countries have no direct diplomatic relations and Washington relies on the Swiss embassy in Tehran to follow the case.

 

Ahmadinejad, in an interview aired in the US on Tuesday on NBC's Today show, predicted the Americans could be freed "in a couple of days".

 

He described the bail offer as a "humanitarian gesture" and repeated complaints about attention for Iranians held in US prisons.

 

In Washington, the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said the US was "encouraged" by Ahmadinejad's comments about freeing the men.

 

"We obviously hope that we will see a positive outcome from what appears to be a decision by the government," Clinton said at the state department on Tuesday.

 

The families of Bauer and Fattal said in a statement that they were "overjoyed" by the reports from Iran.

 

The last direct contact family members had with Bauer and Fattal was in May 2010 when their mothers were permitted a short visit in Tehran.

 

Their case closely parallels that of freelance journalist Roxana Saberi, an Iranian-American who was convicted of spying before being released in May 2009.

 

Saberi was sentenced to eight years in prison, but an appeals court reduced that to a two-year suspended sentence and let her return to the US.

 

At the time, a spokesman for the Iranian judiciary said the court ordered the reduction as a gesture of "Islamic mercy" because Saberi had cooperated with authorities and expressed regret.

 

‌ • Writer:Associated Press