The comments by the men that they were held as “hostages” and that their trial was a “sham” seemed to draw the most anger from Iranian officials.
Gholam-Hossain Mohseni-Ejai, the state prosecutor general, said, “The comments made by the two are contrary to reality. We had foreseen them saying so, and regardless of when we released them they would have said such things against Iran.”
Oddly, he did not assert that since the men were American spies they naturally prattled the official American line. He seemed to have forgotten that they were convicted as espionage agents.
State television didn’t forget. It reported that the two men “appeared before reporters last night and read out a political statement that had been handed to them … by American officials.”
It reported that Shane Bauer “took a stand as if the people of Iran owed him something.”
Masud Shafii, the Tehran lawyer who arranged bail for the two men, was quoted by the Fars news agency as saying the pair’s comments about mistreatment “are not true.”
Fars quoted him as saying that the men had never told him that they had been treated when he met with them in February. But in their news conference, neither Bauer nor Josh Fattal claimed to have been tortured, though they complained of solitary confinement early in their detention and of being denied letters sent by their families.
Fars asserted that Shafii said, “Why have they made such allegations when their problem has been solved and they have left he country?”