Iran holds 3 Americans for illegal border crossing

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran has arrested three Americans for illegally entering the country from neighboring Iraq, and a prominent Iranian lawmaker said Tuesday that authorities were investigating whether to charge them with spying.

A U.S. official rejected the allegation, and a security official in Iraq said the three were merely backpackers who got lost while hiking in a mountainous region where the Iran-Iraq border is not clearly marked.

The case is the latest source of friction with Washington over the detention of Americans, after the espionage trial earlier this year of American-Iranian journalist Roxana Saberi. Such a confrontation could be especially thorny this time around, when Iran is mired in its worst political crisis in 30 years over the disputed June 12 presidential election.

The Americans — freelance journalist Shane Bauer, his girlfriend Sarah Shourd and Joshua Fattal — were hiking in a picturesque region of Iraq’s northern Kurdish region near the Iranian border that is known for lush vegetation, pistachio groves and fruit trees.

The Iraqi regional security chief in Sulaimaniyah said the area is poorly marked, and the three simply lost their bearings when they crossed into western Iran and were arrested Friday. He urged Iranian authorities to free them.

“Our investigations proved there was no political or military reason for the border crossing. They simply made a mistake,” said the Iraqi official, Hakim Qadir Humat Jan.

“They came as tourists. ... I call on the Iranians to set them free,” Jan said.