Source:

October 15, 2010

Tehran, Iran — Two German nationals arrested in Iran for illegally gathering information on an Iranian woman convicted of murder have admitted to breaking the law, state media said Friday.

Iran said the two Germans posed as reporters in order to speak to the son of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, who gained international attention this year when she was sentenced to death by stoning.

“The two Germans have acknowledged their offense, saying that claiming to be journalists was not right,” Iranian Prosecutor-General Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei told reporters, according to state-run Press TV.

Ejei said the two had ties to “hostile elements” outside Iran.

“They were pursuing a certain agenda in the country,” he said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said earlier this week that Germany was “doing everything possible” to free the pair.

A spokeswoman for the International Committee Against Stoning told CNN on Monday the two Germans had been interviewing Ashtiani’s son and lawyer when they were arrested.

Mina Ahadi said she had been in contact with the Germans before their visit in order to set up the interviews. She said she was on a conference call with them Sunday so she could translate the interview when they heard a loud knocking on the door and then hung up, after which she couldn’t reach them.

Ashtiani’s son, Sajjad Ghaderzadeh, and her lawyer, Houtan Kian, were also arrested, Ahadi said.

Also Friday, Iranian state media reported the country’s minister of intelligence said two American hikers detained in Iran for more than a year should wait for a trial and court ruling before being released.

The minister, Hojjatoleslam Heidar Moslehi, also told the IRNA news agency that Sarah Shourd, who was detained with the two Americans before being released last month, should return to Iran if necessary.

Hikers Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer were arrested with Shourd after straying across the unmarked border separating Iran from Iraq’s Kurdistan region in July 2009. Shourd was released on humanitarian grounds September 14 after Omani authorities posted $500,000 bail, but Bauer and Fattal remain held in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison on accusations of spying.