TEHRAN, Iran (AP) – A letter a detained Washington Post journalist wrote to U.S. President Barack Obama has become a major topic of his espionage trial in Iran.
Jason Rezaian, the Post’s 39-year-old bureau chief in Tehran, had his first hearing Tuesday.
At the hearing, Iran’s semiofficial Mehr news agency reports that the letter Rezaian wrote was read aloud in Farsi. The letter said: “In Iran, I’m in contact with simple laborers to influential mullahs.”
The agency also reported Judge Abolghassem Salavati questioned Rezaian about his contact with the U.S. Consulate in Dubai.
Rezaian’s brother, Ali Rezaian, earlier told The Associated Press in Washington the letter was an online form letter his brother wrote after Obama’s election in 2008 and that he visited the consulate to get a U.S. visa for his wife.