NEW YORK // The espionage trial of the Washington Post Tehran bureau chief, Jason Rezaian, resumed on Monday with a nearly four-hour session behind closed doors.
Rezaian, who has been jailed since July with only an hour of consultations with his attorney before his trial began on May 26, is "very tired, very distressed", his mother told the Associated Press after the hearing was adjourned. "He does not understand why he is being held."
The case has been widely condemned by US officials who have pressed for the journalist's release, human rights organisations and the Post. Many observers have said he is likely being held as a bargaining chip in the negotiations over Iran's disputed nuclear programme, though both Iranian and US officials deny his case is being linked in any way.
Mary Rezaian and the 39-year-old Iranian-American journalist's wife, Yeganeh Salehi, who has also been charged in the case, were allowed to sit in a waiting room outside the courtroom but not attend the trial. Salehi is The National's Tehran correspondent.
The session at Branch 15 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court began at 10.30am local time, according to Iran’s Tasnim news agency. The hearing was nearly twice as long as the first, lasting nearly four hours, Rezaian’s brother, Ali Rezaian, said.
The next court date has not been set. “There is going to be at least one more day of trial but we don’t have a next date set,” Ali Rezaian said. “It’s completely arbitrary.” Iranian courts are open during Ramadan, which begins next week, and should not figure into a prolonged delay, he added. Ms Rezaian has been in Tehran for the past month and has been allowed to see her son twice in brief supervised meetings. “He is being accused of being a master spy when all he was doing was reporting on a country that he loves. So it is very hard for him. Very, very hard for him. And of course he misses his wife,” Ms Rezaian said.
Rezaian and Salehi were arrested along with two photojournalists in Tehran on July 22. All were released by October, except for Rezaian, who has faced hours-long interrogations and solitary confinement during more than 320 days in prison.
“I am not in a good state,” Salehi told reporters as she left the court. She faces similar, but lesser charges, Ali Rezaian said, though they have not been made public. Her trial will be held separately and has yet to begin. She has been barred from speaking to the media, working or leaving the country.
In the first session, judge Abolghassem Salavati read a four-count indictment that included charges of espionage, propaganda against Iran and giving confidential information to hostile governments. Rezaian’s lawyer, Leila Ahsan, is legally barred from discussing the closed trial, and has not detailed the evidence.
But it includes an online job application he submitted to US president Barack Obama's administration shortly after the 2008 US elections. The Post's executive editor, Martin Baron, has said Rezaian received a form letter saying he would not be hired.
The propaganda charge could be tied to Rezaian’s visit to the US consulate in Dubai to apply for an expedited visa for Salehi. He may have cited the atmosphere for journalists in Iran in his application, Ali Rezaian has said, and this would likely have been found on his computer.
“We’re disappointed, as is the world, in the arbitrary nature of how the Iranians are proceeding here,” Mr Rezaian said. “It goes back to the fact they don’t have any evidence against Jason.”
tkhan@thenational.ae
