SALON

Sunday, Sep 19, 2010 5:53 PM UTC

Iran-held U.S. woman returns home

Sarah Shourd comes back to America after over a year in custody

By

Topics: Iran, Afghanistan, CIA, Iraq, Iraq war, Espionage,

An American woman who was held in Iran for more than 13 months and accused of spying returned Sunday to the United States.

Sarah Shourd arrived at around 6:30 a.m. at Dulles International Airport near Washington, accompanied by her mother and an uncle, according to a statement released by her family and relatives of two other Americans who are still in custody in Iran.

Shourd and her mother, Nora, were on their way to New York for a news conference later Sunday with the mothers of the other detained Americans, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, the families said.

Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also is due to arrive in the city Sunday to attend the U.N. General Assembly.

Shourd, Bauer — her fiance — and Fattal, a friend of the couple, were detained in July 2009 along the Iran-Iraq border. Iran has issued espionage-related indictments, which could bring trials for the two men and proceedings in absentia for Shourd.

The Americans’ families say they were hiking, and if they crossed the border, they did so accidentally.

Shourd was freed Tuesday after officials in Oman — an ally of both Iran and the United States — mediated a $500,000 bail.

She left Oman Saturday for Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and took a commercial flight from there to Dulles because planes to New York were already full of passengers flying in for the General Assembly meeting, the families said.

Before boarding an Oman Air flight at Oman’s international airport, Shourd asked supporters to “extend your prayers” to Bauer and Fattal. Shourd, 32, did not mention her experiences inside Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison or any health problems, which her mother has said include a breast lump and precancerous cervical cells.

She also expressed special gratitude to Oman, which helped secure a bail arrangement that satisfied Iranian authorities and apparently did not violate U.S. economic sanctions against Iran. The source of the bail payment has not been disclosed.

“I’ll always associate your country with the first breath of my freedom, the sweet smell of sandalwood and a chance to stand by the ocean listening to the waves,” she said Saturday.

Earlier in Tehran, Ahmadinejad said he was hopeful the United States would release several Iranians now that Shourd has been freed.

Ahmadinejad has suggested in the past that the three could be traded for Iranians held in the U.S., raising concerns that the Americans were to be used as bargaining chips as the two countries face off over issues like Iran’s disputed nuclear program. In December, Iran released a list of 11 Iranians it says are in U.S. custody.

——

Associated Press writer Adam Schreck contributed to this report from Muscat, Oman.

More Jennifer Peltz.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee hearing on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 4 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations