Freed U.S. Explorers To Describe The Harrowing Ordeal In Iran

NEW YORK (AP) - Two American backpackers to be held in an Iranian prison was a big surprise one day after their exercise routine: Instead of being blindfolded and taken back to their cells, they suddenly heard the words "Let us go home. "

And a diplomatic envoy to Oman said to them before hitting them out to the airport in Tehran - and freedom, the two men said on Sunday at a press conference in Manhattan.

"After 781 days in prison, Shane and I are free men," said a jubilant Joshua Fattal, hours after he and Shane Bauer landed at Kennedy International Airport.

Safe on American soil, the two spoke publicly for the first time in their trial for over two years in the hands of the Iranians - accused of spying for the country illegally on foot along the Iran-Iraq border.

They say they simply got lost while hiking with another American Shourd, Sarah, who was released last year.

The three paid a brutal price for their adventure, they said.

"Many times, too many times, we heard screams of other detainees being beaten and there's nothing we can do to help them," Fattal said.

Bauer added: "How can we forgive when the Iranian government continues to imprison so many innocent people and prisoners of conscience?"

Bauer himself was beaten and forced down the stairs Fattal, Shourd said.

And even if their families have written letters to them on a daily basis, have been repeatedly forced to go on hunger strike to receive letters from the men said.

The two have managed to cling to life by reading the letters peppered with news of what was happening in the world, Bauer's mother, Cindy Hickey, told The Associated Press.

Eventually, they were told - wrongly - that their families had abandoned them.

Until their release, the last direct link with the family members were with Bauer and Fattal was in May 2010, when the mothers were allowed a brief visit to Tehran.

"The isolation was the worst experience of all our lives," Fattal said. "We live in a world of lies and false hopes."

But on Sunday, hope, filled with a packed news conference in Manhattan Parker Meridien Hotel, as the two walked in 29 years, surrounded by his family. A smile Bauer Shourd put his arm around - and his fiancee.

He had proposed to her when both were in prison, to meet each other in just over an hour at a time more than once a day. He formed an engagement ring off the impromptu discussion shirt.

Fattal and Bauer was released last week during a contract of $ 1 million bail Wednesday and arrived in Oman, welcomed by parents and Shourd.

The families of the men told AP on Sunday do not know who paid the bond.

But hikers do not know who appeared on Tehran's Evin prison to take them to freedom. It 'was a big surprise.

They had just finished a short daily exercise outdoors and predictable, since ancient times, blindfolded and taken back to the 8 - by-13 foot cell. Instead, the guards brought them downstairs, fingerprints, and gave them civilian clothes. It has not been told where they were going.

The guards took them to the other side of the building, where he met with an envoy from Oman, who uttered the magic words, "Come home."

After several hours, opened the prison door and the Americans were driven to the airport, then flown to Oman, a small Persian Gulf nation, which had helped negotiate their release, and is an ally of the United States.

The following day, has become "the most incredible experience of our lives," said Fattal.

Shourd was to greet the families of two tarmac at the airport, the Royal Omani capital, Muscat. About 20 minutes before midnight on Wednesday, Fattal and Bauer is limited to the machine down the stairs - very thin and pale but in good condition.

In prison, he had remained physically and mentally fit by lifting water bottles, books and talk about each other questions, relatives said. And tore strips of cloth pieces of the prison to ensure their shoes so they can function during exercise.

On Sunday, the return of energy was evident, they felt better and better every day, Hickey said the AP.

The first sign of a turnaround in the case last week when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said the two could be freed within days. But disputes between the country's leaders delayed the effort. Finally, the Iranian lawyer Shafiei Masoud obtained court approval required bail Wednesday - 500 000 dollars for every man.

Iranian Foreign Ministry called his release a wave of Islamic piety.

A brilliant Shourd told reporters Tuesday: "Shane and Josh and I begin our lives again, and there are so many new delights that await us, I never felt so free I feel today."

A couple have not yet been made wedding plans, he said.

Available at home, Fattal, and Bauer, sharply rebuked Iran, who were arrested because of their nationality, not because they might have crossed the border with Iraq.

"From the beginning, the only reason we were taken hostage because we are Americans," Fattal said. "Iran has always taken our case to his political differences with the United States"

They said they can never really know if they crossed a border that is not clearly marked in the middle of nowhere.

The detention of the hiker, "Bauer said, was" never cross the border between Iran and commonplace in Iraq. We have been detained because of our nationality. "

The irony of all this, he says, "is that Sarah, Josh and I am opposed to U.S. policy toward Iran, which perpetuate the hostility."

But when they complained about their treatment, said the Iranian guards cited as the U.S. authorities, the military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has faced terror suspects.

The saga of the men began in July 2009 with what they called a wrong turn in the wrong country. The three say they were hiking together in the relatively peaceful Iraqi Kurdish region along the Iran-Iraq border when the Iranian guards inmates.

The two men were convicted last month of espionage and illegal entry into Iran, and was sentenced to eight years in prison. Shourd were charged but released before trial.

The three have always maintained his innocence.

During the press conference, the men took turns reading prepared statements. They took no questions from reporters.

Fattal said he wanted to be clear that while he and Bauer "The Iranian authorities to Pat, and finally make the right decision," they "do not deserve credit for excessive end they had no rights and no reason to start first. "

The two countries severed diplomatic ties three decades ago during the hostage crisis when U.S. diplomats were held for 444 days in the former U.S. embassy in Tehran after he was attacked in 1979 by activists supporting the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Since then both have tried to limit the influence of others in the Middle East and the United States and other western see Iran as the biggest threat in the region nuclear.

Since its release Shourd has lived in Oakland, California, Bauer, an independent journalist, grew up in Onamia, Minnesota, and Fattal, an environmental activist, is Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia.

Shourd Bauer and living in Damascus, Syria, where he visited Fattal and three of the walk.

On Sunday, the families of the men told reporters that he had not made plans for what they would do next - except to carve out private time together. That did not disclose their fate in the coming days.

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