Iranian authorities have released an Iranian-American academic after months behind bars on charges of endangering Iranian national security.
Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, had been jailed in Evin prison since early May after months of interrogation. Her 93-year-old mother used the deed to her Tehran apartment to post bail, relatives said.
"I'm very happy. It was unexpected. I thank all those who made efforts to make it possible for me to go home," Esfandiari told Iranian television. The footage showed her walking out of the prison and meeting family members in a car on a nearby street.
Mohammad Shadabi, an official at the Tehran prosecutor's office, said Esfandiari had been released on $333,000 bail, but he could not say whether she would be allowed to leave Iran.
Esfandiari, 67, was detained in December after three masked men holding knives threatened to kill her on her way to Tehran's airport to fly back to the US, the Wilson Center has said. The men took her US and Iranian passports, making her unable to leave the country, the center said.
For several weeks, she was interrogated by authorities for up to eight hours a day about the activities of the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center, the Washington-based foundation said.
Iran charged Esfandiari in May. Since then, her only contact with her family has been brief telephone calls to her mother in which she said she was under stress and was having trouble receiving medication for her health conditions, said former Rep. Lee Hamilton, head of the Wilson Center.
The Iranian Intelligence Ministry had accused Esfandiari and her organisation of trying to set up networks of Iranians with the ultimate goal of creating a "soft revolution" in Iran. Her husband, Shaul Bakhash, and the Wilson Center denied the allegations.
AP