Sarah Shourd feels only ‘one-third free’ after Iran prison release

An American woman who spent 410 days imprisoned in Iran praised its leaders Sunday for the “humanitarian gesture” of freeing her but expressed frustration at the continued detention of two companions, while Iran’s president suggested the hikers could be bargaining chips in his tempestuous relationship with Washington.

Sarah Shourd, 32, mixed political niceties with firm denials of guilt in her first extensive public comments since leaving Iran’s Evin Prison on Sept. 14. She appeared alongside her mother, Nora, who held her daughter’s hand as they walked into a conference room in a Manhattan hotel after flying to the United States. Shourd had shed the headscarf she used in Iran and wore a crisp white shirt and black pants, with a black stone pendant around her neck.

As Shourd and her mother delivered statements, the mothers of Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, who remain in Evin accused of espionage, stood nearby, clutching large color photographs of their 28-year-old sons. Later, Bauer’s mother, Cindy Hickey, said they had requested a meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during his stay in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, which opens Monday.

Shourd, careful to be diplomatic while her friends remain imprisoned, began by thanking Ahmadinejad and Iran’s spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, by name. She said she hoped their “compassionate release” of her would not go unrecognized, but expressed unbridled frustration at the trio’s arrest, which she blamed on a “huge misunderstanding.”

Iranian officials detained the three in July 2009 after they went hiking in northern Iraq, near the Iranian border. Iran said they crossed the frontier on a spying mission. Shourd said the border near the popular hiking spot was “entirely unmarked and physically indistinguishable” and that the three had no intention of entering Iran.

“We committed no crime and we are not spies,” said Shourd, her voice firm but occasionally shaking slightly with emotion as she described the anguish of leaving Bauer — her fiance — and Fattal. “This is not the time to celebrate,” she said, describing herself as “only one-third free” until her companions are released.

The Shourds did not take questions, but Hickey and Fattal’s mother, Laura, did, saying they hoped to meet with Ahmadinejad, who arrived in New York on Sunday. Asked if they were worried about their sons’ becoming bargaining chips, they said they were in no position to discuss politics.

“Our pleas are as mothers. We don’t get mixed up in the politics of this,” Hickey said.

“We are not politicians,” Laura Fattal added.

But Ahmadinejad made clear in an interview on ABC’s “This Week” that he expected something in return for Shourd’s freedom, raising the question of whether the two American men would become caught in a political tug of war.

“I believe it would not be misplaced to ask that the U.S. government should make a humanitarian gesture and release the Iranians who were illegally arrested and detained here in the United States,” he said, referring to Iranians arrested over the years for violating U.S. laws banning economic and military cooperation with Iran or for supporting terrorism.

When ABC interviewer Christiane Amanpour suggested that Iran was holding the remaining Americans as hostages for the Iranians, Ahmadinejad countered: “How would you know those Iranians are criminals? Are you a judge?”

Several Iranians have been arrested by U.S. authorities and by other governments at the request of the United States for alleged violations of the U.S. embargo on sales to Iran or for supporting terrorism. They include alleged arms smuggler Amir Hossein Ardebili, who was arrested in a sting operation in the Republic of Georgia.

A senior State Department official acknowledged that several Iranians are in custody for such charges, but said he did not know if the number was eight, as Ahmadinejad has said.

The Shourds and the families of Bauer and Fattal timed their New York visit in hopes of meeting with Ahmadinejad and highlighting their cause. Ahmadinejad will use the U.N. podium to defend Iran against U.S. allegations that it is pursuing an illegal nuclear program. Continued attention on the detained Americans could prove a distraction for him.

Iran’s human rights record also has come under scrutiny recently over the case of a 43-year-old Iranian mother of two who has been jailed since 2006 on charges of adultery. In July, after an international campaign by human rights groups, the Iranian government said the woman, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, would not be stoned to death for her alleged crime, a grave offense under Islamic law. But officials have yet to clarify her fate.

During the ABC interview, Ahmadinejad said that the woman had never faced the death penalty and that the case had been used as propaganda against his country. He also questioned why American officials would be interested in what happened to “one lady in a village in Iran.”

In a separate interview with the Associated Press on Sunday, Ahmadinejad said he was glad Shourd had been freed. “And we hope that the other two will soon be able to prove and provide evidence to the court that they had no ill intention in crossing the border, so that their release can also be secured.”

Laura Fattal and Hickey, though, said they hoped their sons would be freed on humanitarian grounds like Shourd, who had complained of medical concerns in prison. On Sunday, Shourd said those concerns had been unfounded and that doctors in the country of Oman had declared her “physically well.”

“We are encouraged that perhaps the humanitarianism will be continued,” Laura Fattal said.

She and Hickey said they had not had time to speak at length with Shourd and had not discussed the prison conditions. Both admitted to mixed emotions when Shourd was freed.

Hickey described it as a “very bittersweet moment.”

“The cold, hard truth is that Shane and Josh are still in prison,” she said.

tina.susman@latimes.com

paul.richter@latimes.com

Times staff writer Borzou Daragahi in Beirut contributed to this report.