On July 31, 2009, three Americans, Sarah and Shane Bauer Shourd and Joshua Fattal by Iranian border guards arrested for alleged espionage during a hike in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Iran says the three crossed into its territory, but the three Americans say they were kidnapped in Iraq.
New York Time - Two American backpackers for years in an Iranian prison, returned, said Sunday they were arrested because of their nationality, not because they could have crossed the border from Iraq.
Joshua Fattal and Shane Bauer arrived in New York on Sunday morning, their diplomatic and personal ordeal ends with a severe reprimand for the country that everyone sentenced to eight years in prison in prison for espionage and illegally established in Iran. They say they can never really know if they come across the border and getting lost while hiking.
"From the beginning, the only reason we have held as hostages, because we are Americans," Fattal said at a news conference at a hotel in Manhattan. "Iran has always been our case, its political struggles associated with the U.S. "
The two 29-year deal last week were released under bail of $ 1 million Wednesday and arrived in Oman, welcomed by relatives and fellow hikers Sarah Shourd, which was published the year last.
The men of the family said Sunday they did not know who paid the deposit.
Human history began in July 2009 with what they consider a wrong turn in the wrong country.
The three say they were walking together in the Kurdish region of Iraq relatively quiet along the Iran-Iraq border, the guards of Iran when they were arrested.
They have always protested their innocence and said they could accidentally wandered in Iran.
The two men were convicted of espionage last month.
Shourd, the farmer proposes marriage while they were incarcerated, was indicted last year but released before each experiment.
A radiant face Shourd reporters and cameras, a packed conference room at the Parker Meridien Hotel.
"This is a huge burden lifted from all our boxes - so much pleasure," she said. "Shane and Josh and I begin our lives again, and there are so many new joys that lie ahead, I never felt so free I feel today. "
But his face darkens when she asked whether men had been mistreated in prison.
Bauer said she was beaten and pushed down a flight of stairs Fattal.
The men took turns reading the statements, which are surrounded by parents and Shourd.
You have no media.
Fattal said he wanted to emphasize that, while he and Bauer "Iranian authorities have finally applaud the right decision", it "does not deserve credit for ending excessive that they had no rights and no justification for start in the first place. "
The two countries are separated diplomatic ties three decades ago during the hostage crisis. Since then, both have tried to limit the influence of others in the Middle East and the United States and other Western countries see Iran as the greatest nuclear threat in the region.
Prison for hikers, Bauer said, was "never on the border between Iran and commonplace in Iraq.
We were detained because of our nationality. "
He said it was unclear whether they also crossed the border into Iran. "We will never know"
The irony of all this, says Bauer, "Sarah, Josh and I oppose U.S. policy toward Iran, to perpetuate the hostility that is."
Both also the difficult conditions in the prison in Tehran where they were kept in near-isolation in detail.
"Heard on several occasions, we too often the screams of other prisoners beaten and there was nothing we could do to help," Fattal said.
Added Bauer: "How can we forgive the Iranian government to imprison so like many other innocent people and prisoners continue?"
They said that their telephone conversations with family members amounted to a total of 15 minutes within two years, and had received letters on repeated hunger strikes to go. Finally, they were told - wrongly - that their family had stopped writing letters.
"The isolation was the worst experience of all our lives," Fattal said. "We live in a world of lies and false hopes."
They kept in shape physically and mentally by lifting water bottles, books and ask questions, said that the family members.
And they tore splinters from the prison of cloth strips, to secure their shoes, so she could work during the year.
The two managed to hold on reality by reading letters from family members that contain messages about what is happening in the world, says Bauer mother, Cindy Hickey, The Associated Press.
Fattal said that its release last week was a complete surprise.
On Wednesday, he said, she had just completed their short daily outdoor exercise and expects to be connected like any other day, around the eyes and head toward their 8 - by 13-foot cell.
Instead, the jailer took them down the stairs, fingerprints and gave them civilian clothes. They were not told where they went.
The guards were then taken to another part of the jail, where they met with a diplomatic envoys of Oman.
His first words to them, "Let's go home."
A few hours later, opened the gates of Evin prison in Tehran and the Americans were driven to the airport and transported to Oman.
Said the day after their sudden release, Fattal, has made "the most incredible experience of our lives."
Shourd was with the families of the two greet on the tarmac of an airfield near Royal Muscat airport in the capital of Oman. Approximately 20 minutes before midnight Wednesday, Fattal and Bauer, in jeans and casual shirts, bounded down the stairs of the plane white and blue. The men seemed very thin and pale but healthy.
The first indication of change in the case came last week when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Fattal and farmers could be released within days.
But delays in the quarrels of the country's leadership efforts. Iranian defender finally got the required court approval Wednesday to Masoud Shafiei bail - $ 500 000 for every man.
Iranian Foreign Ministry called his release a wave of Islamic mercy.
Until his release, members of the family last had direct contact with farmers and has Fattal May 2010, when their mothers were given a brief visit to Tehran, Iranian officials high-profile propaganda.
Since its publication Shourd lived in Oakland, California, Farmer, a freelance journalist, grew up in Onamia, Minnesota, and Fattal, an environmental activist, is Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia.
Bauer and Shourd were in Damascus, Syria, live at Fattal came to visit and three of the hike.
On Sunday, the men said, journalists families they had no plans of what they would do then is - except for the sculpture of private time together. She would not say where they sleep on Sunday night.
