The ordeal of Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post’s Tehran correspondent, takes another turn today with news agencies reporting that he will stand trial in secret.
He has been in an Iranian jail for 10 months since he was arrested on 22 July 2014 along his wife and two other people who have not been named.
Rezaian, 39, who has joint Iranian-US citizenship, is accused of being a spy. His newspaper dismisses such allegations as “absurd”, as do international press freedom watchdogs and US president Barack Obama.
In a statement published on the Post’s website, its executive editor, Martin Baron, said: “The serious criminal charges that Jason now faces in Iran’s revolutionary court are not supported by a single fact.
“The proceedings against him have been anything but fair and open — if they had been, Jason would never have been subjected to outrageous prison conditions, obstacles to selecting a lawyer, limited time to prepare a defence, and an inadequate window on the case that Iran plans to bring against him”.
Baron, who called for the trial to be held in public, said: “The absence of evidence against him should have led to dismissal of the case long ago”.
Ali Rezaian, the journalist’s brother, told Reuters Television: “I think the only reason you could possibly imagine that the trial would be closed would be to prevent people from seeing the lack of evidence”.
His family had hoped that Rezaian’s journalist wife, Yeganeh Salehi - who was released from jail in October last year with the two other suspects - would be allowed to attend the trial with his mother. He also said his brother had lost 40lb (18kg) in prison.
