A doctoral student at the University of Texas (UT), Austin, who has been detained for months in his native Iran on espionage charges will go on trial on 4 October, according to sources close to the student.
Omid Kokabee, who was working toward a Ph.D. in optics, was arrested at a Tehran airport while on vacation in Iran in late January or early February. He had been due to appear in court on 16 July on charges of “illegal earnings” and “communicating with a hostile government,” but officials cancelled his trial at the last minute.
News of the new trial date comes as a number of scientific groups—including the American Physical Society (APS), the international optics society SPIE, the Optical Society of America, the International Commission for Optics, and the European Optical Society—have signed open letters to the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, requesting clemency for Kokabee. They join an onlinepetition for Kokabee’s release.
