Sep 11, 2007, 10:43 GMT
Tehran - The Iranian judiciary on Tuesday confirmed that Iranian-US scholar Kian Tajbakhsh will 'within the next few days' be released on bail from the Evin prison in Tehran.
Judiciary spokesman Alireza Jamshidi told reporters in the Evin prison that the decision has already been taken and the release will take place 'within the next few days.'
Local and foreign reporters were allowed Tuesday to visit Tajbakhsh in the Evin prison.
Tajbakhsh, a sociologist and urban planning consultant with George Soros' Open Society Institute, has been jailed for more than four months for having links to US think-tanks which Tehran accuses of trying to topple the Islamic system.
Tajbakhsh told the visiting reporters that conditions in the prison were satisfactory and that he had access to television and books in his solitary cell. He added that he also had daily phone contacts and weekly visits with his pregnant wife.
'I am held in a suite but just have no pool,' ISNA news agency quoted him as saying.
Referring to reports that he would also be released on bail like the two other Iranian-US national Haleh Esfandiari and and Parinaz Azimi, Tajbakhsh expressed hope for an early release but could give no date.
Esfandiari, who works for the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars and has been jailed since May on alleged espionage charges, and Azimi, a correspondent for a Persian- language radio station owned by US-funded Radio Free Europe, were both allowed by Iran's judiciary to return home after their release earlier this month.
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