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US journalist freed in Iran heads home | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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VIENNA (AP) – An American journalist who spent four months in an Iranian prison was on her way back to the United States Friday.

Robert Hugins, public affairs officer at the U.S. Embassy in Austria, said Roxana Saberi left Vienna on a flight bound for Washington, D.C.

The 32-year-old journalist had spent a week in Vienna recuperating after being released from prison in Iran. Hugins said she was traveling to Washington with her parents and a family friend. Saberi, who grew up in Fargo, North Dakota, and moved to Iran six years ago, has dual citizenship. She was arrested in late January and convicted of spying for the United States in a closed-door trial that her Iranian-born father said lasted only 15 minutes. She was freed May 11 and reunited with her parents, who had come to Iran to seek her release, after an appeals court reduced her sentence to two years suspended.

The United States had said the charges against Saberi were baseless and repeatedly demanded her release. The case against her had become an obstacle to President Barack Obama’s attempts at dialogue with the top U.S. adversary in the Middle East.

Saberi had worked as a freelance journalist for several organizations, including National Public Radio and the British Broadcasting Corp.

After her arrest, Iranian authorities initially accused her of working without press credentials, but later leveled the far more serious charge of spying. Iran released few details about the allegations that she passed intelligence to the U.S.