US Hikers Were Seized in Iraq

Babak Sarfaraz
June 23, 2010 | This article appeared in the July 12, 2010 edition of The Nation.

This article was reported in collaboration with the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute. Naseh Afrani (a pseudonym) contributed reporting from Kurdistan province, and Nicholas Jahr contributed reporting from New York.

Since their arrest last July by Iranian forces near the Iraq border, three Americans—Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal and Sarah Shourd—have been at the center of a high-stakes diplomatic struggle between Tehran and Washington. Iranian authorities have repeatedly accused the three of entering Iran to conduct espionage.

Meanwhile, friends and family of the three, along with the State Department, the Committee to Protect Journalists and this magazine [Bauer has written for The Nation; see "Iraq's New Death Squad," June 22, 2009], have rejected the spying charge and suggested that the Americans accidentally crossed the border while on a recreational hike. Despite a well-publicized visit by the detainees' mothers in May, Iran has released little information about the circumstances of their arrest or the status of their case.

Now a five-month investigation by The Nation and the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute has located two witnesses to the arrest who claim that Bauer, Fattal and Shourd were on Iraqi territory when they were arrested—not in Iran, as Iranian officials have asserted. Two additional sources report that the Revolutionary Guards officer who likely ordered their detention has since been arrested on charges of smuggling, kidnapping and murder.

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