Iran to release Iranian-US scholar on bail (2nd Roundup)

Sep 11, 2007, 20:16 GMT

Tehran - The Iranian judiciary on Tuesday confirmed that Iranian-US scholar Kian Tajbakhsh will 'within the next few days' be released on bail, spokesman Alireza Jamshidi told reporters in the Evin prison in Tehran where he is being held.

Judiciary deputy Ghazi Hadad told ISNA news agency that the amount of the bail has been set at 1 billion rials (107,300 dollars) adding that Tajbakhsh would be released whenever the amount was paid.

Local and foreign reporters were allowed Tuesday to visit Tajbakhsh in the Evin prison.

Tajbakhsh, a sociologist and urban planning consultant with George Soros' Open Society Institute, has been jailed for more than four months for having links to US think-tanks which Tehran accuses of trying to topple the Islamic system.

Tajbakhsh told the visiting reporters that conditions in the prison were satisfactory and that he had access to television and books in his solitary cell. He added that he also had daily phone contacts and weekly visits with his pregnant wife.

'I am held in a suite but just have no pool,' ISNA news agency quoted him as saying. Referring to reports that he would also be released on bail like fellow Iranian-US nationals Haleh Esfandiari and Parinaz Azimi, Tajbakhsh expressed hope for an early release but could give no date.

Esfandiari, who works for the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars and was jailed in May on alleged espionage charges, and Azimi, a correspondent for a Persian-language radio station owned by US-funded Radio Free Europe, were both allowed by Iran's judiciary to return home after their release earlier this month.