TEHRAN, April 9, 2010 (AFP) – Iranian Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi said that three US hikers arrested arrested in July after allegedly straying into Iran from neighbouring Iraq have links with "intelligence services."
"Tehran has compelling evidence that three Americans arrested in Iran last year were cooperating with intelligence services," Moslehi was quoted as saying by the English-language satellite channel Press TV's website late on Thursday.
He did not say which nation's intelligence services they were suspected of cooperating with, adding only that "Iran will present its evidence to the media soon."
In mid-December Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Iran will put the Americans on trial after they "illegally" entered the country.
Tehran's public prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi had said the previous month that the three faced espionage charges.
Shane Bauer, 27, Sarah Shourd, 31, and Josh Fattal, 27, were detained last July 31 after straying across the border during a hiking trip in Iraq's Kurdistan region and are being held in Tehran's Evin prison.
Their friends and relatives have denied they are spies and Washington has insisted that they be released.
