U.S. men in Iran to be freed soon with Talabani help: envoy (Reuters)

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Two U.S. citizens convicted of spying in Iran will be freed soon after Iraqi President Jalal Talabani negotiated their release with Iranian officials, an Iranian daily quoted an Iraqi envoy to Tehran as saying.

Shane Bauer, 28, and Josh Fattal, 29, were arrested on the border with Iraq in 2009 where they said they were hiking. They were found guilty of illegal entry and espionage and were sentenced last month to eight years in prison.

On Wednesday, Iran's judiciary rejected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's announcement that Bauer and Fattal would be freed "in a couple of days."

"The Iraqi president contacted top Iranian officials after the pair's families asked for his mediation ... They will be handed over to the Swiss embassy in Tehran early next week," the Thursday edition of Sharq daily quoted Nazem Dabbagh as saying.

The Swiss embassy represents U.S. interests in Tehran since Washington broke off diplomatic ties after the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed Shah.

During a meeting with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns on Thursday, Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari confirmed Baghdad's intervention in the two men's case.

"The Iraqi government has made intensive efforts to obtain the release of the two Americans. We sent letters, many times, to a high level (in Tehran)," Zebari said in Arabic.

"It was the (Iraqi) president, PM and foreign minister who did that. They (Iranian officials) promised us more than once to release them. Now we have a clear promise and we are waiting for them to be released."

Relations between Iran and Iraq, which fought an eight-year war in the 1980s, have improved since the ousting of Saddam Hussein in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Many Iraqi politicians, mainly Shi'ite and Kurdish, spent years in exile in Iran when Saddam was in power.

The United States accuses Iran and its elite Revolutionary Guards of funding, training and equipping Iraqi militias. Iran denies a role in the violence, which it blames on the presence of U.S. troops, and says it wants a stable neighbor.

The lawyer for the U.S. men said on Tuesday the two would be released on $500,000 bail each. Iran's judiciary said their release was under review.

Bauer and Fattal were arrested on July 31, 2009, along with a third American, Sarah Shourd. She was allowed home on $500,000 bail in September 2010.

Washington has denied they were spies and on Tuesday U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she was encouraged by Ahmadinejad's remarks.

The release of the two could ease tension between Tehran and Washington, particularly before Ahmadinejad visits New York next week to attend the United Nations General Assembly.

Iran and the United States are at odds over the Islamic state's disputed nuclear program, which Washington says is a cover to build bombs.

Tehran denies this, saying its nuclear program is aimed at generating power and has so far refused to halt its nuclear work.

(Additional reporting by Waleed Ibrahim; Writing by Parisa Hafezi; editing by Rosalind Russell)

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Casey Anthony freed from jail, slips from view (AP)

By MIKE SCHNEIDER and MATT SEDENSKY, Associated Press Mike Schneider And Matt Sedensky, Associated Press – 37?mins?ago

ORLANDO, Fla. – Casey Anthony walked out of jail a free woman under heavy guard early Sunday, facing shouts of "baby killer" from a heckling crowd less than two weeks after she was found not guilty of murder in the death of her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee.

The 25-year-old woman, whose acquittal shocked and enraged many around the country who had been following the case for months, left an Orlando area jail at 12:14 a.m., swiftly boarded an SUV and rode out of public view.

A crowd of more than 100 people surged against the orange plastic police barricades as the vehicle left. Some yelled "You suck!" Mounted patrolmen and police cruisers blocked the street outside the jail so Anthony's vehicle could drive onto a nearby highway ramp unobstructed.

"A baby killer was just set free!" shouted Bree Thornton, 39.

News helicopters followed Anthony to a covered parking garage at an Orlando office building where one of her attorneys has offices, but reporters then lost track of her.

A short time later, amid the crush of media attention, there was police activity as two vehicles pulled up to a twin-engine private jet at Orlando Executive Airport, but no one saw Anthony get out and onto the plane. That plane took off shortly after 1 a.m. Sunday for Ohio, the home state of Anthony's parents. But an official there said that aircraft was only carrying golfers back from a Florida vacation.

Anthony, it seemed, had vanished into the night.

Anger over Anthony's July 5 acquittal has spilled onto social media sites and elsewhere. Her legal team said on Friday it had received an emailed death threat with a manipulated photo showing their 25-year-old client with a bullet hole in her forehead.

Caylee Anthony's remains were found in December 2008 near the home Casey Anthony shared with her parents. Prosecutors alleged that Anthony suffocated her daughter with duct tape because motherhood interfered with her desire for a carefree life, but her lawyers said the girl drowned in an accident that snowballed out of control.

Some of the jurors who acquitted Anthony said they believe she bears some responsibility for her daughter's death but that prosecutors failed to prove that she murdered the child.

Anthony had remained in jail to finish a four-year sentence for telling investigators several lies, including an early claim that Caylee was kidnapped by a nonexistent nanny. With credit for the nearly three years she'd spent in jail since August 2008 and good behavior, she had only days remaining when she was sentenced July 7.

Anthony left jail wearing a hot pink Polo T-shirt, blue jeans and sneakers, with her attorney Jose Baez at her side. She was given $537.68 in cash from her jail account to begin her new life.

Her hair in a bun, a somber-looking Anthony quietly said "thank you" to a deputy sheriff waiting to escort her outside, and then strode with Baez to the vehicle as two deputies armed with semi-automatic rifles walked behind. Baez held the back door, she climbed in and the SUV drove off amid camera flashes.

Anthony had a handful of supporters in the crowd.

"I'm for Casey," said Kizzy Smith, of Orlando. "She was proven innocent. At the end of the day, Caylee is at peace. We're the ones who are in an uproar."

One man carried a "Casey, will you marry me" sign. But her backers — at the jail and across the country — appeared to be vastly outnumbered by her critics.

"She is safer in jail than she is out here," said Mike Quiroz, who drove from Miami to spend his 22nd birthday outside the jail. "She better watch her butt. She is known all over the world."

Lamar Jordan said he felt pain in the pit of his stomach when he saw Anthony walking free.

"The fact that she is being let out, the fact that it is her child and she didn't say what happened, made me sick," Jordan said.

Baez, in a brief statement to reporters, signaled a new chapter was opening in the Casey Anthony case.

"It is my hope that Casey Anthony can receive the counseling and treatment she needs to move forward with the rest of her life," Baez said.

Certainly, she still faces anger and ire around the nation that brought tight security for Sunday's release.

"This release had an unusual amount of security so, therefore, in that sense, it would not be a normal release," Orange County Jail spokesman Allen Moore said. "We have made every effort to not provide any special treatment for her. She's been treated like every other inmate."

Moore said there were no known threats received at the jail. Yet officials had a number of contingency plans in place, including plans in case shots were fired as she was being released.

Now that she is free, it's not clear where Anthony will stay or what she will do next.

Her relationship with her parents, George and Cindy, has been strained since defense attorneys accused George Anthony of molesting Casey when she was young. Baez argued during trial that the alleged abuse resulted in psychological issues that caused her to lie and act without apparent remorse after Caylee's death.

Defense attorneys also said George Anthony made Caylee's death look like a homicide after the girl accidentally drowned in the family pool. But defense attorneys never called witnesses to support their claims.

George Anthony has adamantly denied covering up his granddaughter's death or molesting Casey Anthony when she was a child.

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Strauss-Kahn freed from house arrest (AFP)

NEW YORK (AFP) – A US judge released Dominique Strauss-Kahn on his "own recognizance" Friday, but prosecutors who consented to the easing of bail restrictions did not agree to dismiss the sexual assault case against the former IMF chief.

The French politician was in a New York courtroom for a brief but extraordinary hearing that came in the wake of reports that prosecutors had grave doubts about the credibility Strauss-Kahn's accuser, and while sources suggested to US media that the case had serious problems, the judge stressed that the "case is not over."

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Prominent Chinese dissident freed from jail (Reuters)

BEIJING, Jun (Reuters) – One of China's most prominent dissidents, Hu Jia, was reunited with his family early on Sunday after serving three-and-a-half-years in jail on subversion charges, but he needed rest and was not ready to speak in public, his wife said.

Hu, 37, was convicted in 2008 for "inciting subversion of state power" for criticizing human rights restrictions in China, and was seen by some supporters as a potential recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize before it went to another jailed Chinese dissident, Liu Xiaobo, last year.

"He is back home with his parents and me," his wife, Zeng Jinyan, told Reuters in a brief telephone interview.

"I don't know if he can speak later. At the moment, I want everything to be peaceful. I'm worried that doing interviews at this stage might cause problems. Please understand."

Hu's long-scheduled release followed this week's abrupt freeing from detention of the prominent artist and activist Ai Weiwei, and has come while Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is visiting Europe on trips to Hungary, Britain and Germany.

Asked how Hu's health was, his mother, Feng Juan, said by telephone: "It's so so. He was in a very good mood. The first thing he did after coming home was to take a bath. Then he had a meal."

China's Communist Party has cracked down on dissent since February, responding to fears that uprisings across the Arab world could also inspire challenges to its one-party rule, especially ahead of a leadership succession late in 2012.

Many dissidents detained in that drive have been ordered by authorities to stay silent after their release. Hu's wife, Zeng, and other advocates have voiced concern that Chinese authorities might also impose restrictions on him amounting to house arrest after his formal release.

Zeng, a prominent activist in her own right, told Reuters in late May that she was worried by the trend of rights activists coming under informal house arrest after their release from formal detention or jail.

"If we are put under house arrest or disappear, I don't want our daughter to be with us when we endure life under house arrest," she said. "I have sent her to be with my relatives."

Zeng posted messages on Twitter, the micro-blogging site, describing harassment from authorities before Hu's release.

"A prohibition on contact with the media was a condition of Hu Jia's sentence, with the one year's deprivation of political rights on his release, and no doubt the authorities will remind him of that," said Phelim Kine, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, a New York-based advocacy group that has denounced the conviction of Hu and other Chinese dissidents.

"Given the current climate of oppression, he will be under extreme pressure to obey," Kine said by telephone.

ENERGETIC CAMPAIGNER

Hu and Zeng have live in an apartment complex in east Beijing called Bobo Freedom City. Many police officers and security guards patrolled the area on Sunday morning.

"A sleepless night and Hu Jia came home at 2:30. Peaceful. Very happy. Needs a period of time to recuperate," Zeng wrote in her latest Twitter entry in Chinese. Most Chinese people lack the know-how to read Twitter, which the government blocks with a censorship firewall.

Hu was detained in late 2007 and then tried and convicted in the following year on subversion charges that stemmed from criticism of the government he had made in Internet writings and interviews with foreign reporters.

China often uses the broad charge of "inciting subversion" to punish dissidents, and when Hu was convicted, state media said that he had bowed to the accusations against him.

Before he was jailed, Hu pursued an energetic career as an environmental protection campaigner, advocate for rural victims of AIDS, and vocal critic of China's restrictions on political dissent. Shaven-headed and wearing bookish spectacles, he was a familiar sight at activist gatherings in Beijing.

Hu is also a vegetarian and Buddhist who has criticized China's controls on that religion in Tibet and voiced sympathy for the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader reviled by Beijing.

Asked about Hu's future plans, Zeng said her husband studied law in prison and has no plans to move abroad.

"According to law, if you have any criminal record you cannot become a lawyer. But he is studying to gain more comprehensive knowledge," Zeng said in May.

"I think he has very clear and fixed ideas about the future, but we don't know what the conditions will be like (after he gets out) ... I think he will (focus) on rights defending."

(Additional reporting by Michael Martina and Benjamin Kang Lim; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

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