Iran President to ensure U.S. reporter's rights

By Parisa Hafezi and Fredrik Dahl

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called on the judiciary to ensure that an Iranian-American journalist jailed for espionage enjoys her legal right to defend herself, the official news agency IRNA said on Sunday.

Roxana Saberi's lawyer welcomed Ahmadinejad's intervention in a letter to Tehran's prosecutor, published a day after the U.S.-born freelance reporter was sentenced to eight years in jail on charges of spying for the United States.

Lawyer Abdolsamad Khorramshahi has said he will appeal the verdict, which comes at a time when the new U.S. administration of President Barack Obama is trying to engage the Islamic state diplomatically, after three decades of mutual mistrust.

Obama said he was "deeply concerned" for Saberi's safety and urged Tehran to free her.

"I have complete confidence that she was not engaging in any sort of espionage," Obama told a news conference in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, where he was attending the Fifth Summit of the Americas.

He said Washington would be in touch with Tehran about the case through Swiss intermediaries.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said releasing Saberi, 31, would serve as a goodwill gesture.

Reporters Without Borders, the Paris-based media rights group, called Saberi's conviction "unjust under the Iranian criminal code" and said her lawyer was not with her when she appeared before the judges for the single hearing on April 13.