Masoud Shafiee has not been able to see Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal since their conviction last week but said they had been informed of the verdict, passed two years after their arrest near the Iraq border where they say they were hiking.

The sentence came as a shock for supporters of the men whose hopes for their imminent release had been raised by positive comments from Iran’s foreign minister.

“I hope because of the holy month of Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr they might enjoy Islamic clemency,” Shafiee told Reuters.

The end of the Muslim fasting month, which has yet to be announced by religious authorities in Iran, is likely to be on Tuesday or Wednesday and Shafiee said clemency remained a possibility.

Bauer and Fattal were arrested on July 31, 2009 along with a third American, Sarah Shourd, who was released on $500,000 bail in September 2010 and returned home.

The trio, in their late 20s and early 30s, say they were hiking in the mountains of northern Iraq and, if they crossed the unmarked border into Iran, it was by mistake. Under Iranian law, espionage can carry the death penalty.

Their trial took place behind closed doors and no evidence against them has been made public.

The affair has compounded tension between Tehran and Washington, which have had no diplomatic relations since the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the subsequent storming of the U.S. embassy by revolutionary students.

(Read the Reuters article at reuters.com/article/2011/08/28/us-iran-usa-hikers-appeal-idUSTRE77R1GM20110828)

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BACKGROUND
Facts known about the American hikers: 

• Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal and Sarah Shourd were captured by Iranian soldiers in July 2009. (Shourd was released on bail in Sept. 2010 and is in the U.S.)
• The three Americans are anti-war, social justice and Palestine Solidarity Movement activists.  They had been living and active in the Middle East, and were on holiday in Iraqi Kurdistan, an autonomous region of Iraq free from the sectarian struggle that dominates much of Iraq.
• They had been advised of the suitability of the region for a holiday by friends who had been there and through Internet research; and were recommended the Ahmed Awa waterfall, a popular Kurdish tourist destination, by a number of local people whilst they were in Sulaymaniyah.
• After visiting the waterfall, they continued walking within what they believed to be Iraqi Kurdistan, up to and including the time they were detained by Iranian border guards. (from wikipedia)