More than two years after their arrest, American hikers Shane Bauer and Joshua Fattal have been released from Evin Prison in Iran. CNN reports Bauer and Fattal were released to an Omani official Wednesday after each posted $500,000 bail. Iranian officials say their 8 year prison sentences have been commuted. The men will spend several days with their families in Oman before they return to the United States.
Fattal and Bauer were sentenced last month when a court found them guilty of espionage and illegal entry. The pair, along with their friend Sarah Shourd, was arrested in July 2009 while hiking in Iraq’s Kurdish region near the Iranian border. The trio has previously claimed they entered Iran by mistake after being waved over by a soldier. Shourd was released from custody last September after posting $500,000 bail.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad promised Bauer and Fattal’s released last week in an interview with NBC’s Anne Curry. He called their release a “humanitarian gesture.”
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