CAIRO- More than two years after being apprehended in the mountainous border which separates Iraq from Iran, the two remaining hikers Shane Bauer and John Fattal were released on Bail posted by the Gulf sultanate of Oman. Oman paid one million dollars in bail to release both hikers. Bauer and Fattal spent 781 days in an Iranian prison and were returned home on Sunday. During a statement read aloud by the two freed hikers, they thanked many celebrities and heads of state for being instrumental in their release, namely American actor Sean Penn and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. According to Reuters, Penn had reportedly flown to Venezuela in order to meet Chavez. Penn proceeded then to ask Chavez to pressure his Iranian counterpart to negotiate the release of the hikers, which were accused of being spies for the Central Intelligence Agency. Penn's representative has confirmed the story published by Reuters. Free to go
According to Bauer's mother, Cindy Hicky, the two hikers managed to stay fit in prison by using water bottles as exercise weights and tore strips from their blindfolds to make shoe laces. “They're both thinner than when we left them,” Hicky said. “Their hair is nicely cut. They had slight gray under their eyes because they did not have much sunshine. No vitamin D.” A third hiker and Bauer's fiancée, Sarah Shourd, was released last year. After her release she regretted the fact they “didn't know more about that area.” How exactly the hikers managed to stumble in to Iran, or whether they were in Iran at all, is a mystery. The trio did not have a proper map; a move which many believe was reckless. “This was never about crossing the unmarked border,” Shane Bauer said in an interview with reporters in a New York hotel. “We were held because of our nationality. We do not know if we crossed the border. We will probably never know.” At the time of their release, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had arrived in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, where he began criticizing the United States' (US) policy for triggering wars and causing economic distress. Shourd and Bauer got engaged during their captivity. Both had lived together in the Syrian capital of Damascus where she taught English whilst learning Arabic. Bauer is a freelance journalist, and Fattal himself is an environmentalist which visited Damascus before heading out to Iraq with Bauer and Shourd. Considering the trio's stance on the US foreign policy, in particular the treatment of inmates in the US detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, Shourd described the imprisonment as “ironic.” “It was very ironic that when I was in the Iranian prison, complaining about being alone,” she said. “The guards would bring up Guantanamo. We would say: ‘We know. We understand but two wrongs don't make a right.'”
