BloggerMag V2

(Updates with visit details in seventh paragraph, and Shourd comments in ninth and 10th paragraphs.)

Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Iran began the trial of three Americans charged with espionage and illegal entry into Iran at the Revolutionary Court in Tehran.

Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer were detained alongside Sarah Shourd in July 2009 for illegally crossing into Iran from Iraqi Kurdistan. The U.S. government has said the trio mistakenly wandered across the border during a hiking trip.

The detentions have has increased tension between Iran and the U.S., which accuses the Persian Gulf country of seeking to build atomic weapons under cover of its nuclear program. Iran rejects the claim.

Iran freed Shourd in September 2010 on bail of $500,000 and she left the country within hours. Shourd was summoned last week by the Iranian judiciary to return for the trial.

All three denied the charges through their Iranian lawyer Masoud Shafiei, who said he’ll represent Shourd at the trial regardless of whether she attends.

Shourd used to live with Bauer in the Syrian capital, Damascus, where she learned Arabic and taught English, according to freethehikers.org. Bauer, 28, is a freelance journalist and photographer, while Fattal, 28, is an environmentalist who was visiting Damascus before they headed to Iraq, according to the website.

‘Urgent Plea’

Iran allowed the mothers of the three to visit them in Tehran in May last year, citing “humanitarian” reasons. The reunion was broadcast with state television commentators equating the case to that of Iranians in U.S. custody.

In February 2010, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran may be ready to exchange the detainees with Iranians held in the U.S., an overture that was dismissed by the State Department.

In a documentary called “Free Shane and Josh: An Urgent Plea for Compassion” released earlier this year, Shourd narrates their arrest. She said the three were hiking near the Ahmed Awa waterfall in northern Iraq when they met a soldier who motioned for them to step off the trail and go toward him.

“He said Iran and pointed to the ground where we were standing and then he pointed to the trail we had been and said Iraq,” Shourd says. “According to that soldier we did not enter Iran until he gestured for us to come off the trail into Iran.”

The trio was arrested and taken to the capital after the soldiers found American passports in their bags, she said.

Iran routinely accuses the U.S. of sending agents and seeking to topple the Islamic regime.

The U.S. cut diplomatic ties with Iran in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic revolution in response to the seizure of the embassy in Tehran, where 52 American diplomats were held hostage for 444 days. Iran says the hostage taking was a reaction to the U.S. refusal to hand over the Shah who had been admitted there for medical attention.