WASHINGTON
Jailed journalist Jason Rezaian is being charged with four crimes, including espionage, by Iranian authorities after being held incommunicado for nine months, the journalist’s lawyer told the Washington Post on Monday.
Rezaian was working as the Post’s Tehran correspondent when he was taken into custody by Iranian authorities last July. Since then he has been held in Evin Prison, a facility notoriously known for its detention of political dissidents and intellectuals.
Leila Ahsan, Rezaian’s lawyer, held her first “substantive meeting” with the accused Monday at Tehran’s Revolutionary Court, alongside an official translator, according to the Washington Post.
The charges carry a maximum penalty of 10 - 20 years in prison, according to the newspaper.
The Post’s executive editor, Martin Baron, wrote that the charges “could not be more ludicrous.”
“It is absurd and despicable to assert, as Iran’s judiciary is now claiming, that Jason’s work first as a freelance reporter and then as The Post’s Tehran correspondent amounted to espionage or otherwise posed any threat to Iranian national security,” he added.
State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said if reports are accurate, the charges that Rezaian is facing are “patently absurd.”
“He should immediately be freed so he can return to his family. The charges should immediately be dismissed,” she added.
Rezaian, who has dual citizenship in the U.S. and Iran, was detained July 22 with his wife, Yeganeh Salehi, who is a journalist working for the UAE's The National newspaper. She was freed on bail in October, but also faces a forthcoming trial.
