Roxana Saberi arrived in the US days after leaving Iran, thanking every one except President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who was the primary instrument in her release from prison, Press TV reported.
"As per the President's request, please see to it that the legal proceedings are not diverted from the path of justice," the letter from Iran's presidential office to Tehran Prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi read. "Personally see to it that the defendants are able to assert their legal rights in defending themselves."
The letter came one day after the 32-year old Saberi, who holds dual citizenship for the United States and Iran, was sentenced to eight years in prison on espionage charges.
She was convicted of a lesser charge of possessing classified documents without authorization and reporting without authorization, and given a suspended jail term.
Saberi reported for the BBC, NPR, and Fox News during her six-year stay in Iran. She was arrested in January for working "illegally" as a journalist after her press card was revoked in 2006.
Upon arrival at Dulles International Airport outside Washington on Friday, Saberi said, "I'd like to thank human rights organizations and my fellow journalists and those who kept my story alive and pushed for my release," praising President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by name.
Iran said it is pursuing the case of a suspect who supplied Saberi with confidential documents about the American invasion of Iraq. Among those arguing for her continued detention until the very end was Iranian Information Minister Mohsen Eje'i.
A number of commentators have noted that in contrast to the media hype that surrounded Saberi's detention and then release, next to nothing has been said about the number of Arab journalists, some of them working for American networks and publications, that have been arrested in Iraq and detained for years in the Guantanamo prison facility.
They have been released to a deafening silence by the western media -- in stark contrast to the coverage they have received in the Arab press. Then too, there is the direct fire by US forces on Al-Jazeera offices in Kabul and Baghdad, killing journalists and employees in both locations.
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