The head of Iran's judiciary has ordered a court to carefully and quickly consider the appeal of an Iranian-American journalist jailed for eight years on espionage charges.
Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi had issued a decree to the head of Tehran's court, two days after Roxana Saberi was jailed for spying for the United States, a judiciary statement said.
The decree comes after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the journalist should be allowed to offer a full defence during her appeal.
The message was a sign that Iran's leadership does not want the case to derail moves toward a dialogue with President Obama's administration to break a 30-year diplomatic deadlock.
Mr Ahmadinejad sent a letter to Tehran's chief prosecutor instructing him to personally ensure that "suspects be given all their rights to defend themselves" against the charges. "Prepare for the court proceedings ... to observe and apply justice precisely," the state news agency IRNA quoted him as saying.
The letter came a day after Iran announced the conviction and sentence for Ms Saberi, a 31-year-old dual American-Iranian citizen who was born in the US and grew up in Fargo, North Dakota. It was the first time Iran has found an American journalist guilty of espionage.
Ms Saberi's lawyer Abdolsamad Khorramshahi said today he was optimistic she would be acquitted on appeal.
"I'm very hopeful and optimistic she will be acquitted in the appeal stage, or at least that there will be a reduction in her sentence," he said.
"The attention of the head of government to this issue and case can have a positive impact on the proceeding,"
Mr Khorramshahi confirmed he planned to lodge the appeal early next week.
President Barack Obama said yesterday he was "gravely concerned" about Ms Saberi's safety and well-being and was confident she wasn't involved in espionage. The US has called the charges baseless and said Iran would gain US goodwill if it "responded in a positive way" to the case.
"She is an Iranian-American who was interested in the country which her family came from. And it is appropriate for her to be treated as such and to be released," Obama said.
Saberi's case has been an irritant in US-Iran relations at a time when Obama is offering to start a dialogue between the longtime adversaries. A few days before her sentence was announced, Mr Ahmadinejad gave the clearest signal yet that Iran, too, was ready for a new relationship with the US.
Mr Ahmadinejad's letter also referred to Canadian-Iranian blogger Hossein Derakhshan, who has been in an Iranian prison since November on charges of insulting religious figures. Ahmadinejad requested the prosecutor also ensure that he be allowed to fully defend himself, IRNA reported.
Iran has released few details about the charges against the two. Ms Saberi was arrested in January and initially accused of working without press credentials. But earlier this month, an Iranian judge leveled a more serious allegation that she was passing classified information to US intelligence services.
She told her father in a phone conversation that she was arrested after buying a bottle of wine. Her father said she had been working on a book about Iranian culture and hoped to finish it and return to the US this year.
Ms Saberi, who was 1997 Miss North Dakota, had been living in Iran for six years and worked as a freelance reporter for news organizations including National Public Radio and theBBC. Because Ms Saberi's father was born in Iranian, she received Iranian citizenship.
Her parents, who live in Fargo, traveled to Iran to seek her release. Her father, Reza Saberi, has said his daughter wasn't allowed a proper defence during her one-day trial behind closed doors a week ago. He said no evidence has been made public, and his daughter was tricked into making incriminating statements by officials who told her they would free her if she did.
He told CNN yesterday that her trial lasted only 15 minutes. "It was a mock trial," he said.
Iran has been mostly lukewarm to the Obama administration's overtures until Mr Ahmadinejad's comment last week that he was ready for a new start.
It was unclear how far Iran's ruling hard-line clerics and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei are willing to go to achieve better ties. Some of Iran's hard-liners, including those who dominate the country's judiciary, don't want warmer ties with the US and are trying to derail efforts, analysts say.
Ms Saberi's conviction comes about two months ahead of key presidential elections in June that are pitting hard-liners against reformists, who support better relations with Washington. Mr Ahmadinejad is seeking re-election, but the hard-liner's popularity has waned and he's been trying to draw support away from reformists.
AP