Prosecutor says Iran still investigating 3 detained Americans, points to US-held Iranians

Prosecutor: Iran still investigating 3 Americans

TEHRAN, Iran — Three Americans arrested in July after crossing into Iran from neighboring Iraq are still under investigation, a prosecutor said Tuesday, adding that Tehran was concerned about 11 Iranians it says are being held in the U.S.

The Tehran prosecutor did not link the two issues, but officials have increasingly mentioned their campaign for the Iranians when speaking about the detained Americans. U.S. officials have been concerned since the arrest of the Americans that Iran would try to use them as bargaining chips in its dealings with the West.

“The Americans should know that there are 11 Iranian nationals in U.S. prisons. We hope the Americans are treating them based on regulations,” Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi said, according to the official IRNA news agency.

The 11 Iranians on a list Tehran released this month include a nuclear scientist who disappeared on a pilgrimage to Mecca, a former Defense Ministry official who vanished in Turkey and a man held in Canada on charges of trying to obtain nuclear technology.

Iran believes all of them, including three others who it says were abducted in Europe, have been transferred to the United States. Others on the list have been tried in the U.S. on charges of business dealings that violate trade sanctions against Iran.

In the prosecutor’s brief remarks, he did not go into details about the case of the three Americans, whose families say they were trekking in northern Iraq’s Kurdish region and accidentally strayed over the unmarked border with Iran.

Dowlatabadi said in November that the three were accused of espionage, though it was not clear if they were formally charged with spying. Several officials since then have said the Americans would be brought to trial, but they did not clarify the charges.