Iran Says Judge To Decide On 4 Iranian-Americans Charged

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) _ A judge will decide within the next few days whether to indict or free four Iranian-Americans charged with endangering national security, Iran's judiciary spokesman said Tuesday.

Tuesday, June 12th 2007, 7:01 am

By: News On 6

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) _ A judge will decide within the next few days whether to indict or free four Iranian-Americans charged with endangering national security, Iran's judiciary spokesman said Tuesday.

Ali Reza Jamshidi said a judge would complete his preliminary investigation into the charge against the four ``within the next two or three days'' and decide whether they should be freed or indicted.

He said all four have been charged with acting against national security. Several weeks ago, he said they had also been charged with espionage, but he did not repeat that charge in Tuesday's press conference.

The four include Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, who was jailed in Iran in early May.

The others are Kian Tajbakhsh, an urban planning consultant with George Soros' Open Society Institute; Parnaz Azima, a journalist who works for the U.S.-funded Radio Farda; and Ali Shakeri, a founding board member of the University of California, Irvine, Center for Citizen Peacebuilding.

Azima is out of jail but not allowed to leave the country; the other three remain in custody.