NEW YORK // Iranian president Hassan Rouhani would not specify the charges against two journalists arrested in July, including a correspondent for The National, and said their cases have yet to be heard by a judge.
Yeganeh Salehi was detained along with her husband, Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, who holds both United States and Iranian citizenship. A photojournalist and her husband were detained on the same day, also on unknown charges, but later released.
“The individual you named is being investigated,” Mr Rouhani told an interviewer when asked about Mr Rezaian on Wednesday, at the New America Foundation in New York. “At a time when a case is being built and the prosecutor is working hard to send that case file to the appropriate court, only then will everyone be informed as to what the actual charges are.”
“We must not prematurely express opinions about a case file that hasn’t reached the court yet,” Mr Rouhani said.
Earlier in the month, Iranian Foreign Minister Jawad Zarif told US public radio that Iran’s judiciary has “no obligation” to disclose the charges to the US, but that Mr Rezaian is “facing interrogation in Iran for what he has done as an Iranian citizen”.
tkhan@thenational.ae
