The Iranian lawyer for the two American hikers released on bail and repatriated last week after a two-year odyssey through Iran’s penal system appeared to distance himself from his clients in an interview published on Monday, calling their accusations of mistreatment baseless and politically motivated.
The comments by the lawyer, Masoud Shafiei, made in an interview with Iran’s Fars News Agency, came a day after a news conference held in New York by the Americans, Joshua F. Fattal and Shane M. Bauer, both 29. In their first comments on American soil, they provided new details about their captivity in Iran on spying and trespass charges before their release on $500,000 bail each, granted Sept. 21 by Iran’s judiciary.
