On the last 18th April, in order to pressurize the United States , the mullahs sentenced Roxana Saberi, an Iranian-Japanese born in the United States, to 8 years imprisonment. They hoped for an American official intervention to call it interference so to avoid the dialogue that is offered by Obama or even for an official request of release so to lay down their conditions and demand a change of their diplomatic strategy toward Iran.

As a reaction, Hillary Clinton promised on the 20th April some “steps” : thus Tehran had the hope to win the daring bet of this hostage-taking. However Washington didn’t react, didn’t take any official step and merely did some declarations that were politically correct. As a result Teheran became the nasty baddy, a public image that doesn’t please the mullahs.

Two options were considered : a release via a new trial or a plan to make the Americans appear as baddy -by simulating a serious aggravation of Saberi’s health condition what would have required a prompt official intervention of Washington.

Tehran launched simultaneously two projects with some complicity of the victim and mostly her father, a complicity that was probably intentional or forced.

As an answer, the United States took steps but not the ones that the mullahs expected : firstly a humanitarian mediation via the black anti-Semitic pastor Jessy Jackson and a mediation of the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs whose country is the most important oil client of the mullahs. Tehran didn’t dare to answer Jackson back and it even sent the Japanses diplomat packing. On the 5th May, Washington gave up the conciliatory way to take the offensive.

On the 5th May 2009, the honorable L. Dassin, the federal procurer of the Southern Area of New York, announced the indictment of an important representative of the mullahs’regime : Farshid Jahevi, president of the Alavi Foundation, who was arrested on the 19th December as part of a money laundering affair to finance terrorist networks. The American procurer mentioned a sentence that could reach 30 years imprisonment and that would also implicate the possibility of restitution of the Iranian assets that are frozen in the United States, assets that Tehran hopes to get back since decades.

The offensive of the 5th May made the mullahs and their accomplices react. On the 5th May, the spokesperson of the mullahs’ judiciary power, Ali-Reza Jamshidi, announced the holding of Saberi’s appeal trial although the advocates of the journalist barely filed an appeal request with a delay of 18 days ! On the same day, Roxana ended her supposed hunger strike ! This is such a tantrum !

Tehran considered that it did enough compromises and maintained some blurredness about the date of the trial by mentioning a day “during the course of the next week” : which is not in accordance with the procedure because we generally know the date when we make a judiciary announcement. Washington didn’t like such approach that was supposed to sound out its intentions and it took again the offensive. On Thursday 7th May -last day of the week in Iran, the federal procurer informed Jahedi that he would be brought before the courts the next day at 6 pm -before the federal Judge Shira A Scheindlin. [1]

On this Friday, although this day is a holiday in Iran, Jamshidi, the spokesperson of the mullahs’ judicial power, reunited the press to announce the date of Sunday 10th May for the appeal trial, i.e. before Monday 11th May, second day of Jahedi’s trial in New York. In the meantime, Saberi’s advocate, an indirect spokesperson of the regime, mentioned his optimism to the press : “We are expecting that this 15 pages defense speech that was given to the court will be taken into consideration. I hope she will be acquitted, I am optimistic.”

Washington stroke rightly. Now only remains the fact to organize the coordination between both verdicts even if the market value of the Iranian prisoner is so high that Washington could ask in exchange the release of every Iranian-American who are presently detained in Iran.

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The french version of this article :
 Iran : Les dessous du second procès de Saberi
 (10 mai 2009) |
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