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Israel Condemns Verdicts on Jews in Iran
Israel Saturday condemned the " harsh verdicts" passed on some of the Iranian Jews on charges of spying for Israel, and urged Tehran to change its mind on sentencing the Iranian Jews.
"The government of Israel wishes to express its profound shock and concern following the harsh sentences passed on some of the Jewish prisoners, who are innocent of any wrongdoing," Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Reports from Shiraz, about 800 kilometers south of the capital of Tehran, said that three of the 13 Iranian Jews tried on charges of spying for Israel were acquitted and the rest were sentenced to prison terms of four to 13 years on Saturday.
Hossein Ali Amiri, the provincial judiciary chief of Fars Province where the trial has been held since April, said earlier in the say the sentences included fines and lashings.
"These harsh verdicts will deprive innocent people of their freedom for many years...and we call upon the international community to continue working together with Israel and to do their utmost to bring about the prompt release of the Iranian Jews," the statement added.
The statement denied once again that the Iranian Jews were agents of Israel. Iran's Jewish community remains the Middle East's largest outside Israel.
Court hearings for the accused Jews began on April 13 in Shiraz, capital of Fars Province, and formally concluded last Saturday. Eight of the defendants have confessed to passing on classified information to Israel and having connections with Israel's security service.
Under the Western powers' pressure to release the Jews, Tehran insists that the arrests of them, in March 1999, had nothing to do with their religious backgrounds and no foreign country should interfere in Iran's internal affairs.
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