Two US citizens sentenced in Iran to eight years' jail for spying have flown out of the country after Oman paid bail of $US1 million, diplomats said.
Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer, who were arrested while hiking along the Iraq-Iran border in 2009 and denied being spies, flew out of Teheran airport late on Wednesday evening (local time), the Swiss ambassador who represents US interests in Teheran told reporters.
The official IRNA news agency said one of the men had spoken with his family before leaving Iran.
It said Fattal and Bauer were expected to go first to Oman, a Gulf Arab kingdom whose officials helped to secure their freedom.
"I am happy. They were my clients. We tried for nearly two years and gained the results we wanted," the pair's lawyer Masoud Shafie told reporters.
The ISNA news agency quoted Shafie earlier as saying Oman had paid the bail.
The release was announced last week by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who said it would be a humanitarian gesture before his annual trip to the U.N. General Assembly in New York.
Ahmadinejad told US media that the men would be let go "in a couple of days". But Iran's judiciary, controlled by rival conservative hardliners, immediately and publicly contradicted him by ruling out an imminent release.
In the event, the men's departure on the eve of his speech to the assembly could hardly have been better for Ahmadinejad as he tries to improve his image with the US public.
Bauer and Fattal were arrested on July 31, 2009, near Iran's border with Iraq along with a third American, Sarah Shourd. The trio, in their late 20s and early 30s, said they were on a hiking holiday.
Shourd was released on the same $500,000 bail a year ago and allowed to fly home, but the two men were sentenced to eight years in prison last month after a trial held behind closed doors.
Washington denied that any of the group were spies. Their supporters say no evidence against them was ever made public.
With no diplomatic relations between Washington and Teheran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, several countries tried to resolve the impasse.
In addition to Oman, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani also helped to mediate, Iraqi officials said.
The Swiss embassy was also involved, but the ambassador, Livia Leu Agosti, was not allowed to enter Teheran's Evin prison and had to wait in her car for the men's release.
Shafie said the release had been delayed twice because a judge whose signature was required was away on vacation -- another hint that Ahmadinejad's rivals within the fractious ruling elite might have aimed to embarrass him.
Oman's Foreign Ministry thanked Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Iranian government for "responding with humanitarian considerations and to efforts of the sultanate's government", the Omani state news agency ONA reported.
