Secret war report led to spy charges for Roxana

A joyful Roxana Saberi yesterday thanked those who helped win her release as her lawyer revealed his client had been convicted of spying in part because she had a copy of a confidential Iranian report on the war in Iraq.

Ms Saberi, a freelance journalist who was freed on Monday after four months in prison in Tehran, had copied the report "out of curiosity" while she worked as a freelance translator for a powerful body connected to Iran's ruling clerics, said the lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht.

It turned into a key part of the prosecution's case against Ms Saberi during her secret, closed-door trial in mid-April before an Iranian security court, Mr Nikbakht said. Prosecutors had also cited a trip to Israel that Ms Saberi had made in 2006, he said. Iran bars its citizens from visiting Israel, its regional nemesis.

Speaking to reporters in Tehran for the first time since her release, a smiling Ms Saberi, 32, said she did not have any specific plans but wanted to spend time with her family. She looked thin but energetic, dressed in a blue headscarf, black trousers and a black dress.

"I'm of course very happy to be free and to be with my parents again, and I want to thank all the people all over the world – which I'm just finding out about really – who, whether they knew me or not, helped me and my family during this period," she said in brief remarks outside her home in north Tehran.

"I don't have any specific plans for the moment, I just want to be with my parents, and my friends and to relax." Her father said she was catching up on news stories about her detention on the internet as the family prepared to return with her to the United States in the coming days.

Ms Saberi's original trial was a swift, single session that her father said had lasted only 15 minutes. She didn't have a chance to speak and she was sentenced to eight years in prison, drawing an outcry from Washington.

But she spoke in an appeals court on Sunday, explaining her side to the judges, Mr Nikbakht said.

Ms Saberi had admitted that she had copied the document two years ago but said she had not passed it on to the Americans as prosecutors had claimed. She had apologised, saying it had been a mistake to take the report.

At the time, Ms Saberi was doing occasional translations for the website of the Expediency Council, which is made up of clerics who mediate between the legislature, the presidency and Iran's clerical leadership over constitutional disputes. Mr Nikbakht gave no details on what was in the document because it remains confidential.

Ms Saberi also told the appeals court that she had engaged in no activities against Iran during her visit to Israel, Mr Nikbakht said.

The court accepted her explanation and reduced her sentence to a suspended two-year term, prompting her release. Another of Ms Saberi's lawyers, Abdolsamad Khorramshahi, said a letter from the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to the court, urging it to give Ms Saberi's case a complete review, had helped bring about the sentence reduction.

Her arrest came at a time when President Barack Obama was launching his outreach to Tehran, aiming to ease years of tension between the two adversaries.