Families Await News On Trial Of US Hikers In Iran

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- The mother of one of two American hikers held in Iran for nearly two years said Monday she'll be up before dawn on Wednesday waiting for any news as her son and his friend go on trial on allegations of spying for the U.S.

Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal are due to go on trial in Tehran on Wednesday. Their families say the men were hiking in northern Iraq when they were arrested by Iranian soldiers on July 31, 2009. Bauer's fiancDee, Sarah Shourd, was arrested with them but was released on bail in September and is back in the United States.

Iran has charged them with espionage, but U.S. authorities have repeatedly called for their release and denied that they were involved in spying.

"They're absolutely not guilty of anything," said Bauer's mother, Cindy Hickey, of Pine City, Minn.

Bauer and Fattal pleaded not guilty in a first trial session in February, and Shourd pleaded not guilty in absentia. The three have said they did not realize they had crossed into Iran.

Hickey said the families have received no new information on how the 28-year-olds are doing since they received a Christmas card with a one-paragraph message from Bauer in December. Neither their Iranian lawyer nor Swiss diplomats who represent U.S. interests in Iran have been allowed to see them in prison recently, she said.

"It's time to end the political games they're playing with Shane and Josh," Hickey said.

Their last diplomatic visit in prison was last fall not long after Shourd's release. Hickey said diplomats have made daily requests to see Bauer and Fattal since then to no avail, while their Iranian lawyer, Masoud Shafii, keeps requesting meetings with them, too. She called Shafii "courageous" and expressed confidence he will fight hard for their freedom.

Shourd was freed on $500,000 bail for health reasons but has said she's suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder because of her 14 months in solitary confinement and will not return to Iran for trial. The three became friends as students at the University of California at Berkeley and Bauer and Shourd became engaged in prison.

"She's the one who can see the prison, smell the prison, feel the prison," Hickey said.

Hickey said Shourd's trauma makes the families especially worry about the well-being of Bauer, who grew up in Onamia, Minn., and Fattal, who grew up in suburban Philadelphia, because they've been held even longer. She said they don't even know if they're even being held in the same prison as before.

While the mothers of the three hikers were allowed to visit them last May, Hickey said they decided against going back for the trial.

"We really want them home. We don't want a visit. We want this to end," she said.

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