American hiker Shane Bauer
(credit: MOHAMMED MAHJOUB/AFP/Getty Images)
American hiker Shane Bauer (C) poses with his mother (2nd L) and two sisters and fiancee Sarah Shourd (2nd R) after stepping off an Omani Royal Air Force plane on September 21, 2011 in Muscat, Oman, after Tehran released Bauer and Josh Fattal on bail, months after handing them hefty jail terms. The pair was released earlier September 21, 2011 from Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, after more than two years in jail for spying and illegal entry into Iran, after the Gulf sultanate of Oman paid their bail. Bauer and Fattal were arrested along with Shourd near the mountainous border with Iraq on July 31, 2009. All three have consistently maintained they innocently strayed into Iran while hiking in Iraq’s Kurdistan region. Shourd, the third hiker, was released last year on humanitarian and medical grounds.